It’s almost that time of year again – the season when every wild-eyed black grouse enthusiast is up and about before dawn, trekking into obscure corners of the countryside and crawling through the undergrowth to get a closer look at those dearest of all birds. Although in my enthusiasm, perhaps I started a little early Continue reading

I found this jaw-dropping picture of a huge pack of black grouse which was taken in Mongolia – they’re like woodpigeons. Give me ten years and I’ll be taking photographs like this on the Chayne…   Continue reading

Yet more snow is now falling in the Galloway hills, and a brisk south easterly wind is making it drift in some places to several inches. It’s not exactly apocalyptic, but the way it’s coming down is pretty unpleasant. There is a smoky mist of driving snow which gets down collars and up cuffs, and Continue reading

Having posted last week about my pet blackcock’s apparent reluctance to lek properly, I now have the pleasure to report that all is well in the display department. I noticed that he was out and about just before lunch today, so decided to take the opportunity to play him a recording of lekking blackcock which Continue reading

I was just going through some photographs on my computer and found this one; for some reason the only surviving photograph of a series I took of my favourite blackcock doing what he did best – kicking hell out of a pheasant. He liked nothing more than a good scrap, and given that he spent Continue reading

Over the past week my pet blackcock has started to display more and more. Watching him from the upstairs windows, I see that his wattles are more prominent than they were, although they are still a long way away from being at lek size. He walks about very keenly, then inflates his neck after a Continue reading

Just in terms of an update on the blind black grouse, he seems to be in very good spirits. I’ve now had him for four months and he has come back well after his moult. His plumage is pretty well immaculate, although his longest tail feathers are always a bit tatty (as per the photo, Continue reading

So much of this blog is devoted to moorland that it seems wrong that grouse are never talked about in the context of food. To be quite honest, I don’t eat as much grouse as I would like to – I possibly eat three or four brace a year – so when I was offered Continue reading

It’s not often that I get the chance to shoot driven grouse, so being invited to shoot in East Yorkshire was a rare treat. Typically, the weather conspired to turn a busy day into something totally different. With deep snow lying thickly on the moors, the main drives were exchanged for a series of shorter Continue reading

Another miserable, rainy day meant a trip to the fancifully styled “Book Town of Scotland” at Wigtown this afternoon. It’s about a sixty mile trip along the Solway, but the dull journey was made a little more interesting by the fact that we saw a party of little egrets standing on the mudflats at Creetown. Continue reading