Bog Myrtle & Peat

The blackcock is an altered bird. The feathers in his neck are falling out in tufts, and his moult appears to be well underway. I finished some typing work at midnight last night and slumped in front a bad film. By the closing credits, it was starting to get light outside, so I seized the opportunity to get up to the Chayne for a quick scan around the farm before going to bed. It was 3:45 am when I arrived, but it was already full daylight. The blackcock was lekking above the sheepfold where I first saw him in April.

The display was different this time, and I wonder if it will continue to change as the summer goes on. Whereas before he walked in tight circles with his tail fanned out, this time he took a very different approach. First of all, he stood stock still in silence for five minutes, then flew suddenly into the air to land a short distance away, lekking at full bore with his throat swollen and bubbling. He wouldn’t move around while he displayed like he did in the spring. This time, he slowly turned round and round until his enthusiasm failed him and he would be left standing deflated and silent. Five minutes later, he would suddenly start to lek again, beginning the process anew with a great deal of fluttering.

Whenever he was seized by one of his flapping fits, he would sneeze extremely loudly, but it was without the familiar disyllabic “Kchooo-wi” which was so recogniseable in his former displays. It was a furious and incoherent sound, and even at one hundred yards, I could hear his wings beating along to it. The greyhen was also moulting, and I watched her on the hillside above him. It is perhaps worrying that she wasn’t sitting on her nest, but if it turns out that she isn’t breeding this year, there is very little that I can do about it.

By 5am, the lek had subsided, and the blackcock retired to a dyke near the car where he set about preening himself. Feathers flew as he carefully worked his way through them, and a bald patch noticeably grew on his throat and neck as I watched him. After an hour of stretching, primping and straightening, he fell asleep, only to wake when a cock pheasant drifted past nearby. The blackcock leapt into battle stations, fluttering down to chase the gaudier bird away and making an unusual high pitched noise which I can best describe as “Ha – Ha – Hahahahaha”. The closest comparison would be the call of the kookaburra, but even that’s not a very good similarity.

Despite looking like a bedraggled crow and shedding feathers like an old pillow, I still think he’s utterly fascinating.