Bog Myrtle & Peat

Every well managed grouse moor has spring traps over every stream and above every break in a wall, and in an effort to put the black grouse bog on vermin lockdown, I have borrowed some important tips from the experts. Over the next few days, I will be establishing stoat and weasel traps along a two mile circuit of the farm buildings, the lekking ground, the woodcock strip and just less than half of the red grouse moor.

Limited as always by a tiny budget, I have bought samples of the two different varieties of Solway Spring Traps (Mk. 4 and Mk.6), as well as a 110 Magnum trap, (all found for sale on the Solway Feeders website). Stoats and weasels live in drystone dykes, and they use the stones as protection from foxes and buzzards as they move around their territories. When a dyke crosses a stream, these little monsters are put in a quandary. They don’t want to leave the stones to find a good shallow spot to cross, and they don’t want to get their feet wet by taking the shortest route. Positioning a long board as a bridge over the water gives them an easy way to cross from one stretch of the dyke to another, and on these bridges, traps are obviously a great idea.

In the same way, stoats are very thorough when it comes to searching dykes for food, and wherever a wall has collapsed or crumbled, a raised plank and trap will encourage him to pop in to investigate. The benefits of raising a trap along the top of a wall is that, if it is covered in wire to keep non target species out, it can be checked at a glance from several yards away, rather than is the case with boxed traps on the ground which need to be closely approached and inspected.

I decided to raise the plank (in the picture above) up into a high point in the wall not only because it is a good place to trap stoats, but also because it is more or less in the centre of the black grouse bog. As the spring starts to arrive, the last thing I want to do every day is trapse through the bog and disturb everything to check the trap, so now I can check it as I drive past less than thirty yards away. Usually, a trap is enclosed only with rabbit mesh, but having an irrational phobia of the blackcock somehow stepping on it with enough weight to crush the wire, I built in a solid roof, which I camouflaged this morning with stones and willow twigs. An unexpected blizzard hit as I was putting the final touches on, but with a few more of these traps around, I can maybe stop worrying about stoats and weasels so much.