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TARGET ARCHERY | FIELD ARCHERY | CLOUT SHOOTING | FLIGHT ARCHERY | POPINJAY

Target Archery is what most people think of when they picture archery : archers shooting at a circular target and scoring by whatever coloured ring they manage to hit. It is, however, slightly more complicated than that : targets come in different sizes, rounds vary in number of arrows shot, distance from the target etc., and there are dozens of different rounds which can be shot. All types of bow may be used for target archery : for illustrations of bows and also scoring on a conventional target, see under equipment.

Target archery can take place both indoors and outdoors; indoor ranges are obviously constrained by the length of clear space available and so rounds are usually shot at distances of 18 and 25 metres, with a correspondingly smaller target face.

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Field Archery is not usually carried out in a field, despite its name. The course is laid out in open ground, through trees and shrubs, up and down slopes and on rough terrain. Targets may be pictures of animals or three-dimensional models, and may be set at known distances or require the archer to estimate the distance; all types of bow can be used for field archery and it appeals to all ages and levels of skill, and field archery is steadily growing in popularity.

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Clout Shooting is a very old form of archery, with its origins as far back as 1676 and the Royal Company of Archers. The target is a flag ("clout") and the object is for the archers to shoot their arrows to land as near as possible to the target, from a distance of 180 metres for men and 140 for ladies.

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Flight Archery does not use a target as the object is to shoot an arrow as far as possible : the current world record is 1222.01 metres, held by Don Brown of the USA since 1987; the world record for ladies is 950.39 metres, shot by the delightfully-named April Moon of the USA in 1981.

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Popinjay is very popular on mainland Europe; "popinjay" is actually the Mediaeval English name for a parrot or any other brightly-coloured bird. The oldest recorded archery tournament in the British isles is the "Papingo" shoot in Kilwinning, Ayrshire, which has been held since at least 1483.
The target is more complex than in other forms of archery, a sort of triangular support with "birds" on it, the "cock" at the top, four "hens" on the next layer and twenty-four "chicks" at the bottom, the whole thing then raised 90 feet off the ground and points scored for the "birds" as they are knocked off, with the cock scoring most and the chicks least. As what goes up must come down, special blunt arrows are used! Occasionally, popinjay "roosts" may be constructed horizontally and the "birds" shot in a more conventional manner.