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Hand Reared Grouse?
It was a huge pleasure to visit a reader of this blog on Thursday, when I was shown what it takes to breed and keep grouse in captivity. After a productive spring, black grouse chicks strolled happily through the long grass inside their pens, cheeping and being clucked at by their respective bantam surrogates. Red… Continue reading
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Shredder and the Shaving Foam Cap
Just thought it was worth posting this picture of one of my two new ferret kits playing with the cap from a can of shaving foam. She was dumped in the bath to amuse herself while I dealt with the pheasant chicks which are settling in to their new home in my sitting room, and… Continue reading
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Cannon Fodder
Over the past two years, I have learned a great deal about moorland ecosystems. Everything is irrevocably linked together by mutually dependent relationships, and food chains are extremely complicated. With the exception of top predators and generalists, if one species gets out of hand, mechanisms will click into place to redress the balance and supress… Continue reading
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Juniper Inspiration
I’ve been so busy slashing down sitka spruces to build my new release pen that I haven’t really had time to think about what I want to replace them with. The woodcock strip has been opened up enough over the past year so that roe deer now live in it after an absence of more… Continue reading
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Seas of Meadowsweet
Meadowsweet is one of the most fantastic flowering plants in Britain, and having only been introduced to it for the first time last year, I now see that it is also one of the most common. The hedges and verges across Galloway are decorated with creamy sprays of flowers, and the soft smell of sweet… Continue reading
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A New Generation
Everyone likes wagtails, and I thought that a picture of a recently fledged youngster might find an appreciative audience on this blog. The little bugger was fluttering around a pile of old rylock sheep net as I drove up to it, and it gave me a defiant glance before buzzing away up the hill on… Continue reading
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Release Pen?
After two days of serious graft, the pheasant release pen is starting to take shape. It’s always extremely satisfying to work a chainsaw in a sitka plantation, because it gives you the pleasing feeling that you are carving yourself a space out of the trees from the inside. Thirty spruces have come down to open… Continue reading
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Ten Days Later
Ten days out of the incubator and the pheasant chicks are starting to come along leaps and bounds. Some are showing rapid development in their wings and wing feathers, and all are getting bigger by the day. Their incessant peeping rings through the kitchen at Solway Feeders, where they are housed in a huge cardboard… Continue reading
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A Brood of Owls
Driving back from the Scone Game Fair last night, I headed down a little back road through an area of good grouse country a few miles north of the Chayne. It was just beginning to get dark and a single delicate shape cruised down over an area of rough grass below the road. Slowing the… Continue reading
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Lesson Learned
The ferret show at the Scone Game Fair still has no idea what hit it. Organised and judged by the Scottish Ferret Club, the show was not at all what I was expecting. From what I could see, mine were the only two working ferrets in the contest, and as the other competitors were being… 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 