Bog Myrtle & Peat

Despite the fact that this blog is grandly named “working for grouse”, I must admit that there is an appallingly small number of red grouse on the Chayne. Spring counts revealed less than twenty birds, and given that the majority of my work on the farm is carried out in the absence of dogs, I very rarely see any sign of them.

That is not to say that they’re not there. Wandering through the low ground in the spring, I regularly hear grouse cocks yammering away to one another as dawn breaks, but it has become quite a rarity to see any at any time of the year. It has long been my ambition to photograph them, but given their cryptic camouflage and uncanny ability to vanish at the first sign of danger, I have been basically unsuccessful for the past year. Until today.

Walking up to the highest point of the farm with my parents and their three dogs, we flushed a pair of grouse from a snowy hole. The cock rose first, cackling wildly and stretching his neck out before him. A fraction of a second later, he was joined by the hen. They didn’t fly far, but they were in the air just long enough for me to photograph them. It’s not a great picture, but now that I’ve taken my first, all I can do is work to do better.