Bog Myrtle & Peat

Unbowed by my failure to see black grouse lekking in the evening last week, I returned this morning at the crack of dawn for another awesome display of hormonally charged dancing. There is something worryingly addictive about watching a lek, and I wonder now how I will manage when the season passes away and the cock birds return to the secrecy of the thick undergrowth again.

It was 6am as I pulled up by the lekking site, and a low mist drifted over the tussocks of heather. Two cock birds were displaying energetically on the trampled grass sixty yards away, and they scarcely even looked up as I wound down the windows and started to try and take photographs. It was too gloomy for the long lense on my camera, so I watched them call and strut for twenty minutes while the day brightened up.

The last time I visited I saw two cock birds displaying, but it was late in the day and they paid no real attention to one another. This time it was different. Edging closer and closer, they showed off their white powder puff tails, turning back and forth until their beaks were almost touching. A close exchange of pecks and shoves would make them sway to and fro, then a sudden burst of violence and wing beats brought the display to a dramatic climax. The light wasn’t good enough to see whether they were striking at one another with their feet or not, but a great deal of feathery tumbling took place. The distinctive cooing sound would become a high pitched chuckle, like a kookaburra, and a look of grave fanaticism would settle on their faces.

In an instant, they would recover their composure and sneeze wildly. They tripped in the grass then turned to call again in a different direction as if striking blindly at an invisible challenger. The bubbling “coo” would return and they would separate again, meandering aimlessly away from one another until one would lower his head and charge back into battle like a remote controlled car, calling and gesticulating as if to say “I haven’t finished with you yet, my boy!” At one point during the battle, a female appeared in the heather, but whether or not she was impressed by what she saw is a mystery. She took to the air and flew far over the back of the hill and both cocks followed her.

Within ten minutes they were back again, gliding in on set wings like hen pheasants and landing with a determined flourish. One cock seized control of a high tussock of heather and contented himself with fluttering on and off it while his competitor bustled around the bottom like a furious sentry, calling wickedly and planning mischief. The female was nowhere to be seen, and after another vicious exchange, one cock flew away, surrendering the lekking ground to his opponent. The remaining bird continued to bubble and sneeze on his own for three quarters of an hour before packing up his tail and shuffling off out of sight.

It had been a tremendous display, even though there had only been two lekking birds. As I drove home, I laughed aloud more than once as I remembered the sheer delight of watching the hilarious battle between two of Galloway’s most beautiful gladiators. My only regret was that it didn’t all take place on the Chayne, but I am more determined than ever to change that.