YORKSHIRE GROUSE

   Spent the last two weeks in the Lake District on holiday so had the chance to take loads of pictures of species not normally encountered around here. The cottage we stayed in was set in a lovely valley with very few houses around it and plenty of wildlife on the doorstep pictures of which will follow in later posts. On Tuesday the 14th I got in the car at 3am and drove over to North Yorkshire through a mixture of rain and snow showers to meet Simon Phillpotts from Wild Dales Photography who guided me up onto the moors to find the Red Grouse and maybe some other upland birds that should have been nesting. However we realised fairly quickly that because of the cold (2 degrees centigrade) and wind it was going to be difficult to find many birds willing to show themselves so we decided to spent the morning on the moors and then in the afternoon go down to a river and try and find Dippers and Grey Wagtails.
   In the early morning light we drove through the moors looking for obliging Grouse who were willing to show at close enough distances to photograph in the gaps between the showers. We saw quite a few Red Grouse and even a couple of the much rarer Black Grouse but unfortunately they were at a much further distance and were not worth photographing. Black Grouse are much more timid than their red cousins and after the mating season are not easy to find although if you get up early enough you can find the males at traditional sites known as leks were they display to the females especially in the spring and autumn. The Red Grouse pair up in the spring and each male occupies a territory of about 1 acre which they defend against intruders. Sometimes you get a male who fails to attract a mate and who becomes very aggressive in defending their territory even chasing cars and attacking people.
   Eventually we came across some birds that were close enough to picture although all the photographs here are of male birds with bright red eyebrows which become more prominent the more aggressive the bird is feeling.