The black grouse and his greyhen seem to be doing very well in the bog by the farm buildings. I watched him this afternoon as he jumped back and forth off the foundations of a ruined stone wall a hundred yards away. In theory, the greyhen should be sitting on eggs by now and he Continue reading

Having  met the grouse keeper at the Thrumster Estate near Wick, I felt as though I could happily return to Galloway with a head full of new advice and encouragement. I was given hints on everything from drainage to grit, and even had a diagram drawn for me illustrating how best to catch the stoat Continue reading

Black grouse aren’t the only birds who lek in the spring. Off in the distant pine forests of the highlands, some of the most fantastic birds in the British Isles are displaying for territories and mates with as much vigour and fury as any blackcock south of the central belt. I am currently on a Continue reading

It seems like life for this black grouse cock is settling into an easy rhythm. He tends to the greyhen in the bog for half an hour and leks for her, then flies to the top of the nearest hill to carry out in-depth patrols. I watched him this afternoon fly up over the road Continue reading

I have been worrying about my black grouse cock. If he didn’t have a female by his side, he was wasting his time by aimlessly lekking to himself. If he didn’t have a female, it would be a matter of time before he was killed by a fox and that would be the end of Continue reading

When I found the first black grouse on the Chayne in over two years, I was thrilled. When I saw the second, I could hardly believe my luck. It turns out that I shouldn’t have believed my luck. I saw the same bird twice, and so it seems like we have a single black grouse Continue reading

Unbowed by my failure to see black grouse lekking in the evening last week, I returned this morning at the crack of dawn for another awesome display of hormonally charged dancing. There is something worryingly addictive about watching a lek, and I wonder now how I will manage when the season passes away and the Continue reading

Most of my information on black grouse is currently coming from an extremely unlikely source. I recently bought an old hard backed book called “six pointer buck” by David Stephen, and when I opened the front page, a shower of article clippings fell into my lap. Sifting through them, I found that they were all Continue reading

Having had such a resounding introduction to black grouse lekking displays on Sunday, I was determined to see more. I was widely assured that the birds perform a similar but less spectacular form of the behaviour just after the sun sets, and 7 pm being a far more sociable hour than 7am, I was keen Continue reading