Bog Myrtle & Peat

Since seeing the blackcock for the first time in several months at the start of January, I have seen him two or three times around the farm buildings. On all occasions, I have either been too slow with the camera or have had a gun in my hand instead, so when I came across him today by total accident, it was a relief to be able to snap away with impunity. I was trying to see if I could get a male hen harrier and a red kite in the same photograph, but although I succeeded, both were too far off to make the picture worth displaying on this blog. As I collapsed the zoom lens, I heard a tremendous amount of rustling coming from under the trees behind me. I turned around to see the blackcock at almost full lek in the middle of a grave tussle with a cock pheasant.

The two birds were chasing around in some dead horsechestnut leaves, and the blackcock finally succeeded in trapping his adversary against a section of rabbit netting. He set about beating the living daylights out of the larger bird, until it escaped and dashed away through the leaves. Within seconds, the blackcock had caught up with it again and he grabbed the pheasant’s tail feathers in his beak to bring it to a halt. Pheasants are usually quite submissive when they are attacked by black grouse, but this was clearly a step too far. The cock turned round and slashed at the little black bird with a sudden display of assertion. If the blackcock hadn’t been angry before, he was wholly incensed by this defiance. Giggling noisily, he launched an all-out assault on the cock pheasant, which, after receiving an almighty pummeling, resignedly took to the air and flew off up the hill.

Not satisfied by his victory, the blackcock followed the retreating pheasant, landing beside it and attacking from a new angle. The pheasant knew he had been beaten, and he took off again and vanished onto the moor. Finally content, the blackcock returned to where I had first seen him and spent the next few minutes preening himself.

I know that, aside from the period of their moult, blackcock display all year round, but I was not expecting to see my boy lekking this early on. His wattles weren’t fully inflated, and there wasn’t the same patient aggression that you might see in March or April, but I’m delighted to see that it looks like he fully intends to defend his territory for yet another year.