NATURE Our true emblematic, enigmatic ginger

Pic: ©National Park and Wildlife Service

A truly emblematic, enigmatic red head


Country sights and sounds
John Shelley

It is simply too long since we met up with that portly little gentleman that had warned us of the rainstorm on the slopes below Scardaun. He had been asleep, with his head down in the deep heather, until our heavy footsteps had thrown him awake.
Flinging his head in the air, he cast an angry eye over James and myself. ‘Go back!’ he admonished. ‘Go back! Go back!’ and with that he burst from his resting place and rushed headlong down the hill at a terrific speed as if it were the very bones of the sean-bhean bhocht he had seen rising from the mould, giving us no more than a glimpse of his gingery tweed attire.
James followed his course with an imaginary gun and claimed a bullseye. I allowed him that; I had been more interested in finding the place our friend had been at rest and, more importantly, discovering more of his kind, for the red grouse has long been a scarce creature in this part of the world and more legend than Cathleen herself.
Our National Parks and Wildlife Service completed a survey of the grouse population of Owenduff/Nephin area in 2012, which was essentially a repeat of work that had been done a decade before. The findings were released a year ago – how time flies – and I should have referred to them long before. As we would expect, the increased protection of the area since the establishment of the National Park has led to an increase in grouse numbers. Even so, there are considerably less birds on the ground than might be expected, with an average of only three on each kilometre square surveyed.
What difference does it make whether we have grouse or not? Most of us never see nor even hear of them. They choose to live on the high hills, far from the places we frequent. No tourist eye beholds their secret lives. They have no monetary value.
And yet they are woven into the tapestry that is Heritage. Were they no longer there it would be another thread, another colour, pulled from warp or plucked from weft of the integrity of this unique landscape. Think, too, of those few who do venture into the more remote areas of our country – and they are few indeed; when we spotted another rambler on a far off slope James had idly wondered, ‘What would he be doing there?’ as if it were the far side of the moon.
I was delighted to find signs of a reasonable population of grouse. Although we saw no other birds we did find scores of curled brown and white droppings and plenty of softly speckled, ginger-brown feathers which I eagerly gathered, for the fibres of grouse feathers are soft, mobile and beautifully marked, perfect for tying trout flies. Held in the hand individual feathers are pale and almost translucent; layered on the living bird they combine to create a rich Sienna that becomes almost black on the underside of older birds.
Thirty years ago there were still small numbers of red grouse living on my home hills around another National Park, Exmoor, in the south-west of England. There, shooting men would be greeted with a succession of polite requests on their return from a day’s sport, each looking for a small fistful of feathers that would be fashioned into local favourite fish-killing flies such as the Grouse and claret or Grouse and yellow spiders. More than a decade ago the Royal Society for Protection of Birds recorded Exmoor grouse as locally extinct. Although I probably never saw them alive I cannot help but feel that something of great value has been lost.
There is more. Since the demise of that bird, which was likely not native to the area in the first place, the once ubiquitous and most definitely indigenous lapwing has also been lost as an Exmoor breeding bird. The curlew is going the same way. We can but look on and sigh, and perhaps learn a little.
The Owenduff/Nephin bogland is far more remote than any part of modern Exmoor and ought to be far less influenced by 21st-century life, which is likely how the place has continued host to a population of grouse. But now we have difficult choices. Do we struggle to maintain our National Park as it is, and create a ‘potted’ landscape, or do we sit back and watch natural processes gradually shape the wilderness. How long would it take before woodland spread from the few river valleys where it has a toehold to change the very nature of the blanket bog, the the preservation of which was the reason for securing National Park designation in the first place?
Woodland does not regenerate well on bog. Yet it does happen, and it will, soon, I hope. The grouse is emblematic, romantic, enigmatic, exciting the passions of sportsman and amateur naturalist alike. They will not be there always. Go, now.