Bog Myrtle & Peat

Just to commemorate the passing of the 12^th with this picture of a soggy grouse poult which I took yesterday during a fine day’s grouse shooting in Coverdale. It was largely a bright, wild day with some horrendous showers, and while the birds did as well as they could, this year’s later hatch was quite obvious during some of the stronger gusts when young birds were simply blown away downwind. Under any other circumstances they would have flown well, but the bare, wind blown Yorkshire peaks were just slightly too wild for some. When the drives brought birds directly downwind, they came like meteorites, and some of the older poults and pairs made for some stunning shooting.

There is always an element of controversy around grouse shooting, even within in the shooting community. Lots of people see driven grouse as so obscenely expensive that it simply cannot be worth the money, interpreting the mega-buck days as just excessive displays of wealth. While there is no doubt that there is a certain amount of showing off from some guns, standing in the butts to watch coveys of birds come whip-cracking overhead is genuinely staggering. In my extremely limited experience, shooting driven grouse is not technically harder than shooting geese or woodpigeons – there is simply a knack to it, and (as with any quarry species) grouse require certain skills that you don’t use elsewhere. Our sport is so subjective that it’s impossible to argue which gamebird is “best”, but having stood in the butts with shotgun and camera, I must admit that there is a wild, thrilling magic to grouse which makes it obvious why some people are so keen to spend substantial amounts of money on them.

From the perspective of a devoted grouse enthusiast, the birds are perhaps not at their best on August 12th, but the hills are so alluring under the wide summer skies that the experience makes up for it. So much discussion rages to-and-fro about the propriety of land management for game, and I understand why people who don’t shoot are bemused by the financial costs of taking a day’s driven grouse. But if you do shoot and you get a glimpse of distant specks skimming towards you over the purple, it all becomes very clear.

Much more to follow.