Bog Myrtle & Peat

The death of my favourite blackcock has been a major setback, but things continue with the same rushed excitement that every spring seems to bring on the hill. I’ve been burning heather with a new red grouse project down on the Solway coast, lamping foxes at every opportunity and planning my annual assault on the local corbie crows. The ladder trap has been in situ for over a month, and during that time it has accumulated a nice white coating – proof positive that the six foot high frame has been visited and inspected by the crows, and they will hopefully now learn to treat it as part of the moor. I’ll start trying to catch a call bird in the next few days and then things will take on a momentum of their own.

I see from last year’s records that I caught a huge number of weasels in March last year, but so far I’ve only had two in my spring traps. Perhaps it’s too much to hope that I’ve knocked them into submission during the course of a single year, but it certainly looks like they’re on the back foot. I’ll shuffle my traps around before the start of April and then see what I can catch in the way of mustelids as spring moves into summer.

The red grouse cocks cackle at dawn and dusk, and although the other blackcock are too far over the hill for me to hear them on my daily rounds, it’s a comfort to know that they’re still up there, bubbling and sneezing to one another on the high ground. If they’re going to have a bright future on the Chayne, I need to resist the temptation to look back and get stuck into the work that still needs to be done.

In the meantime, my favourite blackcock lies in the freezer. I haven’t decided what will become of him yet, but I have some ideas.