Bog Myrtle & Peat

Hinds rose from their cover on the face of the blackened hill. An eagle had moved above them, and now for the sake of devilment it dropped around their shoulders and chivvied them up into the dawn. I had been watching three blackcock displaying together nearby in a stumpy wreck of myrtle and cindered grass, smiling to myself at the sight of their white tails darkened with soot. Life goes on in the aftermath of the big fire, and as the hinds tossed their heads and loped away from the eagle, the bird turned and made a feint of attention towards the grouse instead. It wasn’t meant to be a serious assault, but mischief can breed opportunities – it felt like the predator was just seeing what would happen, standing ready to capitalise if a chance presented itself.

As the eagle drew down towards the blackcock, it surprised me to see those birds folding their tails and dashing towards a bank of scree. I thought they would fly away, but they tumbled into the stones like rabbits. Since the eagle was never that interested anyway, it drifted for another quarter mile up the glen and landed in the branches of a flame-scorched rowan tree. Within fifteen minutes, the hinds had settled down and the blackcock were displaying again. Viewed from almost half a mile away across a bristle of heather and running water, the incident was hardly more than a ripple in the cold enormity of the Galloway Hills – but it more than repaid a long walk and a cold night in a drafty tent.

By and large, black grouse know that they aren’t to be taken lightly. They’re big and strong, and it takes a concerted effort to kill a blackcock at the peak of his health and condition. But the urge to display is a distraction, and these usually wary birds are sometimes vulnerable during the height of spring. Eagles can kill black grouse without pausing for breath, and I have sometimes found black grouse feathers in the mess of litter and crap which mounds beneath the eyries here. It’s probably unusual because we have so few of either species in Galloway, but friends in the north understand that it’s a common occurrence – and that black grouse can form a considerable part of an eagle’s diet in the spring. It’s more usual for the birds to be killed by goshawks here – I’ve watched it happen on three occasions in this part of the world, and it’s been terrifying to realise that when this sort of ambush has been sprung, there’s almost no escape for the boys in blue. 

Most other raptors are cautious of committing to an adult black grouse. There are many reports of female black grouse being killed by peregrines, but only when they’re flying. That’s the falcon’s Achilles’ Heel – they can only really kill birds on the wing. It follows that if you’re being pursued by a falcon, the best route to safety lies in hitting the deck – pronto. I have seen red grouse fly vertically down into the heather to escape from a peregrine, sometimes even injuring themselves quite badly in the process – but red grouse have an unusually pronounced fear of falcons and they can be driven to extraordinary lengths to escape when that sinister shape appears above them.

I’ve spotted peregrines “buzzing” black grouse at the lek on several occasions – sometimes out of mischief, but perhaps also to see if any birds will panic and fly, thereby creating an opportunity. They’ll do the same to woodpigeons or wildfowl, staging a surprise attack which is designed to flush prey into the air. The only defence against this kind of approach is the hardest course of action – birds which are able to keep calm and stay put are usually quite safe.

I also have a feeling that falcons swoop around black grouse leks for the same reason that buzzards and ravens are drawn to do the same. They seem slightly spellbound by the behaviour; they don’t really know what it is, but they’re clever and curious and it’s a nice opportunity to throw their weight around. I have seen buzzards kill female black grouse and ravens will often kill young birds – they’re unquestionably enemies, but once they’ve landed in the middle of a lek, they’re effectively harmless.

Human beings worry about disturbance to black grouse leks. Foresters and renewables companies are fastidious about avoiding the birds during the springtime, and commercial developments are often postponed until the autumn or winter where black grouse are present. It’s ironic that many of these activities end up destroying black grouse habitat – and yet official guidelines stipulate that the birds shouldn’t be disturbed while they’re being made extinct. 

I actually reckon that black grouse are pretty resilient during the leks – and having seen how quickly those birds returned to “business as usual” when that eagle had moved on, the theory seems sound. Disturbance can cause mayhem, but things are soon pieced back together again. It’s likely that female black grouse are more sensitive to disturbance, but even when leks are repeatedly interrupted, mating will always happen somehow. In extreme cases, leks which are routinely disturbed by human beings usually just move to somewhere more peaceful – or the peak of activity gradually shifts earlier into the morning when there are fewer humans around. In some cases where goshawks routinely hunt for displaying birds, blackcock become nocturnal and transact their displays in the dark.

The real fragility of disturbance comes late in June when female birds are hatching eggs or protecting young chicks – but few allowances are ever made for this genuinely vulnerable period. I’m not aware of any situation where black grouse were shown to decline because disturbance meant that mating didn’t happen at all. Disturbance is unhelpful at any stage, but it’s infinitely more destructive when eggs and chicks are involved.

A lek of three black grouse is an extreme rarity in Galloway nowadays. Even since this blog began in 2010, big leks of twenty or twenty five birds have become a thing of the past in the Southern Uplands. Blackcock have vanished from massive areas of Dumfries and Galloway, and notwithstanding this brief and exciting spectacle on a distant hillside at six o’clock this morning, it’s the first time I’ve had something fun to say about these well-beloved birds in several years.