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Big Broods
On my trip down to Coverdale last week, I couldn’t resist driving through Teesdale, the heartland of England’s black grouse population. Usually used to seeing thirty or forty black grouse in a short half hour circuit of the dale, I was slightly downhearted to only see fields of lapwings as I first pulled off the… Continue reading
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Diet Detective
After the most fantastic day of grouse shooting that I can ever remember on Friday, it’s interesting to study the bodies of the fallen before they end up in the oven. We shot one and a half brace during an afternoon of racing cloud and sunshine, walking them up with the help of a young… Continue reading
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Knitted Grouse
The great downside (or fortunate bonus) of being devoted to a popularly obscure gamebird is that there is no consumable merchandise that my friends and family can give me on my birthday. Aside from the RSPB enamel badges, there really is almost nothing in the way of gimmicky black grouse tat such as key rings,… Continue reading
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The Glorious Twelfth
Just to commemorate the passing of the 12th 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… Continue reading
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Data Recovery
Just worth noting that I had memory card professionally restored after losing all the photographs taken during my trip to Mull, Aberdeenshire and Perthshire. It may have cost me £70, but as they start to appear on this blog and elsewhere in print, I’m sure I won’t regret it. This young mountain hare (above) was… Continue reading
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Red and Black in Perthshire
I had a very interesting morning last week counting on a moor in Perthshire where the grouse move in very mysterious ways. Despite showing very well during the spring pair counts, the August counts are usually well down, with many of the pairs absent altogether. Being a west-coaster born and bred, the idea of water… Continue reading
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The Snipe Mystery
After last summer’s soaking wet snipe bonanza, where birds were rising in even the most unlikely spots, this year has been an odd one. There’s no doubt that the birds were present on the Chayne in some quantity from March until May, when the drumming was almost incessant twenty four hours a day, but the… Continue reading
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The Let-Down Loner
Having been listening to the arrogant cackling of a grouse cock in a totally new and unexpected corner of the hill, I took up a friend with a pointer last week in an attempt to find out what all the fuss was about. Despite covering a huge amount of ground, the pointer revealed nothing in… Continue reading
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Keeping Mum
The inevitable chuntering about harrier persecution has reared its head in advance of the 12th August, and while it normally seems pointless to try and engage in this stale, cynical stodge of an argument, it is worth noting some comments which have surfaced about the nature of living with rare species. The RSPB and SNH… Continue reading
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The ptarmigan marathon
The past few days have been spent driving around Scotland on an extensive grouse pilgrimage which took in ptarmigan on the Isle of Mull, grouse counting (red and black) in Perthshire, and then ptarmigan again in the Aberdeenshire Grampians and the Cairngorms. I walked almost forty miles on extreme terrain, took a huge amount of… Continue reading
About
“Shout on, Morgan. You’ll be nothing tomorrow”
Swn y galon fach yn torri, 1952
Also at: https://andtheyellowale.substack.com
Bog Myrtle & Peat 