‘So, this is a grouse butt’ says Henry.
Wouldn’t it be a laugh if more people had a look at them and had their photographs taken in them? A kind of ‘Occupy the Butts’ movement?
I’m sure there will be places to put such images later in the year.
Vote for Hen Harrier as our national bird.
#HaveYouSeenHenry
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Would be even funnier if people did it on the 12th August.
On public land they could couldn’t they?
Or are there by-laws in favour of grousing fraternity that would see arrests during their ‘partying’?
Also on mountain and moorland by virtue of CRoW?
Well done Henry! (and Mark)
Having been on Snilesworth,indeed on the bit in the photo of Henry, it was acres and acres and acres of relatively short heather and very little long enough for a Harrier nest or that of Merlin. A few pipits and a couple of curlew in miles of walking, plus those really crap wooden butts. May be all Osborne moors are like that!
I once heard from a reliable source that when a Harrier is seen in the NYMs the keeper who sees it rings all the surrounding keepers so that evening they all go to the favoured roost spots on their moors to locate it. One suspects the life expectancy of such harriers is pretty damned low, Hen or Montagu’s ( the latter used to breed regularly many years ago and has intermittently done so more recently.) I would think most keepers could not tell the difference and if they could it would not alter their reaction. Buzzards and Peregrines are pretty scarce in that area too, I wonder why?