Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Upland keeper
After a tough two years grouse numbers are finally recovering and an old-fashioned grouse year, with a mixture of outcomes, is in prospect
I’m aware the weather can vary greatly — even in a country as small as ours — but it’s been a grim couple of springs for the birds in the north of England, with poor success for the majority of them. Warm weather, which arrived far too soon, kick-started insect populations, which then perished as temperatures plummeted and we had little to no rain for weeks. The end result was that the newly hatched waders, ducklings and grouse that relied on them had nothing to eat and in turn died within a few days of leaving the egg.
Our martins fared little better, flying long, hard hours to rear a depleted brood, but at least they reared something. Two pairs of swallows have also returned this year and have already produced a good brood each and are busy with the second. Our waders, in comparison to the past two springs, have done well, with notable numbers of curlew, lapwing and snipe.
All in all, it’s heartening to see — including the pied wagtails that decided to use the nest box I had installed in the garden, rearing a second brood, the first in a climber on the wall. I’ve enjoyed many happy moments with a coffee watching them feed the youngsters.
Relief
The gamekeepers will be mightily relieved that the grouse have done reasonably well, although there has still been some fallout from last year’s spring death toll in that some of the survivors were obviously not in great condition. Many grouse have succumbed this year, have not bred well or nested late, producing at best a small clutch. The late spring deaths amounted to a smaller stock than some thought they had and in consequence, this year’s harvest of young birds will have to be carefully managed to allow a decent stock for next year.
That said, no one should head straight back into the high-density stocking of a few years ago, which is what got them into this situation in the first place — banking high numbers to get that bumper season. They only had to look at what vast numbers of pheasants did for that market to see that the same was going to do for the grouse. It simply killed it and their once valuable product was worthless.
“I’ve enjoyed many happy moments watching them feed the youngsters”
I have a feeling this year will be more of an old-fashioned grouse year with a few moors doing reasonably well, some doing less so and sadly some not having much to shoot at all. For a few, this will be the third season of low stocks on the bounce, which isn’t much fun.
Is it the end of medicated grit?
Well, we will have to wait and see what the practitioners decide to do. After all, it would seem to have failed, though it could be argued that it was never designed to do what was being asked of it. I feel the grit would have dealt with reasonable numbers of grouse, but nothing can cope with the ultra-high densities that most moors were carrying, which in turn has not only led to the crash but also to other problems appearing in grouse populations that no medication is going to erase.
It is something some may wish to ponder when they consider the long-term consequences of what’s been done for grouse moors and the red grouse in the years ahead.
The problem we encountered when we had a very good season was how to reduce the numbers enough to save them — despite trying our best. Before the use of medicated grit, stocks that were too large simply died and you had to start again from scratch — but at least in those days there were none of the other problems in the birds that there are now.