Red Grouse (Lagopus Lagopus Scotica)
One of the commonest grouse species in Britain and the one most likely to be seen on a hill walk into the Scottish Highlands. Males are reddish brown with thick red eyebrows and the females are a vermiculated black and yellow and have thinner red eyebrows. They are often well camouflaged and are only noticed when flushed. They can burst out of the heather and utter a loud ‘geback-geback-geback-geback-geback’ whilst flying a fluttering flight in an arc before landing again.
Red Grouse are currently recognised as the British race of the Willow Grouse, which is the species found in Scandinavia and Finland and there are some rumours that it may become a British endemic if split. By endemic, it would mean that the Red Grouse would only occur in Britain.
Black Grouse (Tetrao Tetrix)
A large, rare grouse in Britain. Males are black with a bluish sheen and red eyebrows, with black and white tails with black feathers that are shaped like lyres. Females are drabber, with black and yellow barring, with notched tails. Every spring in April and May they host leks or mating areas in particular spots used year after year. In these lek sites, males make loud gobbling sounds and spread their tails to attract females, with males regularly clashing with each other. Females are largely silent but when flushed can make a soft, ‘tsek’, quite apart from the explosive sounds made by Red Grouse.
Black grouse are a Schedule 1 species which makes it illegal to disturb the birds and their lek sites.
Capercaillie (Tetrao Urogallus)
Also known as the Western Capercaillie, the Capercaillie is the world’s largest grouse growing to the size of a turkey. It’s one of Britain’s rarest birds and within Britain only lives in Scotland in isolated fragments of the Scottish Highlands. The males are black and brown with green iridescent breasts that are most obvious when exposed to sunlight. They have whitish yellow bills, red eyebrows, brown wings and tails that they can fan out when displaying. Females are yellow brown and are drabber overall.
They live in coniferous forest, particularly Scot’s Pine with an understory of Bilberry being ideal as they are full of berries which the Capercaillie eat and they also shelter caterpillars that are food for their chicks.
The word ‘Capercaillie’ means in the local Scottish Gaelic language ‘horse of the forest’, because of the cork popping notes it makes that sound like the clip-clop of horse’s hooves. This sound is made when it is displaying in its lek sites to try and attract females. The cork popping is usually followed by a strange spluttering sound, like a chainsaw that’s struggling to start. While Capercaillie usually lek in established sites in forests, there are occasionally individuals that display away from them. These are known as rogue Capercaillies, and they can display anywhere even near paths and places likely to be used by people. Such individuals can be very aggressive towards anything that moves, including walkers, cyclists, horse riders and even vehicles, and persistently attacks anything it perceives as competition.
Capercaillie numbers are very low in Britain today, thought to be caused by disturbance from people. Climate change is another threat, with wetter springs thought to make the mortality of the chicks higher, as they can be chilled easily. Their low numbers and their susceptibility to being disturbed means that they are a Schedule 1 species and people are advised not to search for them, especially off trail so that the population has a chance of recovery.
As such at Speyside Wildlife, we have a Capercaillie Policy:
We won’t take guests into known Capercaillie habitat during the lekking period (1 March - 31 May). Outside these dates, when going into potential Capercaillie habitat, we always stay on marked tracks and paths and never go off these. When there is an alpha male (also known as a ‘rogue’ bird) in the area we won’t go to see this bird. They are part of the lek, so we would be ‘knowingly’ disturbing them.Through the autumn and winter months, young birds will have fledged and dispersed into the forests, however, to conserve energy, Capercaillie are active for as little as four hours a day, so if we do encounter them we shall stay still, quiet and let them move off by themselves.
For more details go to the Lek It Be - Cairngorms Capercaillie Project at: https://cairngormscapercaillie.scot/lek-it-be/
Ptarmigan (Lagopus Muta)
Also known as the Rock Ptarmigan, it is the most high altitude grouse in Britain. In summer they are greyish, with males having larger red eyebrows than the females, which have reduced eyebrows and are usually yellowish grey with black stripes. Their grey colour allows them to blend in really well in rocky environments. In winter they turn white so that they blend into the snow better, which helps them avoid being seen by predators like Golden Eagles. They can be seen in flight, sometimes in flocks and usually flies low to avoid detection.
Their feet are heavily feathered, which helps keep them warm and work like snowshoes. They typically live at least eight hundred metres above sea level but can come lower if conditions higher up are severe. They eat seeds and lichen, living off of the barest terrain and are very hardy. They have to be, because unlike some other Arctic bird species they’re unable to put on enough weight to hibernate. The name Ptarmigan is derived from the Gaelic word ‘tarmachan’ which translates as ‘croaker’, and they are often first detected by their croaking calls. The silent ‘p’ of the name was added by the Scottish physician Robert Sibbald in 1681, derived from the Greek word for wing ‘pteron’ so it would translate as ‘winged croaker’.
If you would like a chance of seeing some of our grouse species you can book one of our day guides at: http://bit.ly/sw_DG
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