Bog Myrtle & Peat

It has now been more than a month since I last visited the fantastic estate in Scottish Borders where black grouse have become extraordinarily abundant thanks to solid management and efficient predator control. Passing through again yesterday morning, I stopped by the roadside to listen for any sounds of autumn lekking going on up above me.

Black grouse lek throughout the year, only drawing  their displays to a halt during the moult in July and August, when their tail feathers fall out and they are physically unable to show off. The spring is when they really concentrate on lekking, but the autumn is also a popular moment for birds to reorganise themselves and let off some steam by displaying. These displays are not for any breeding purposes, and greyhens will not even visit autumn lek sites. Unperturbed by their absence, blackcock will persevere regardless.

I had been advised that a great number of blackcock were gathering to lek on a ridge out of sight from the road, so I set off up the hill with my camera poised, hoping for the best. There was no sound of any lekking, but with a slight wind swirling in the gulley, perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to hear anything if there had been. Once up on the low rise, a monstrous clatter sounded out from above me. One by one, about a dozen blackcock got up from an area of dead bracken a hundred yards away, powering  their way into the air and over my head at a height of about forty feet.

The sky sang with wingbeats as I crouched down and snapped photographs madly. In less than five seconds, they were gone. Small flashes of black and white twinkled on the opposite side of the valley as they settled again, and I was left with a strong mental image of powerful birds pumping their wings in the damp gloom. Looking at my photographs when I got back, I saw that their wattles were all down as they flew, meaning  that they had probably stopped lekking when they were disturbed. Autumn lekking displays don’t last as long as leks in the spring, so it could be that when I saw them, at about nine o’clock, they had already packed it in for the day.