Tim writes: Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus) usually defend a territory throughout winter, in which the pair will breed in spring. Birds that haven’t managed to find a territory form a nomadic flock and will take up any vacancies if any territory-holders die. But over the last few days I have noticed that all the usual territories appear to have disappeared and there is now one big super-flock of Red Grouse. I have counted the birds from photographs and this flock exceeded 80 birds though this one just shows part of that flock. This flocking behaviour has coincided with cold, snowy weather though it surprises me that they appear to have given up their territories as they are used to snow and cold temperatures. Also their smaller relative Ptarmigan (Lagopus mutus) survives the winter on top of Scottish mountains and is even resident on Svalbard, hundreds of miles north of the top of Norway. This photograph was taken on 12 February high on the Peak District Moors in West Yorkshire.
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Excellent photo of our native red grouse, possibly a separate species from the willow grouse. Who the goodness would want to shoot and kill these great upland birds.? Really, one does wonder if some of those that want to shoot these wild birds for fun and those politicians and Defra ministers that support this very horrible activity, don’t have a Victorian and very nasty outlook towards our wildlife.
The other day I stopped on my walk for a few minutes to watch some that were about 15ft up in the shrubby trees hawthorn, etc picking at the buds while there was a lot of snow on the ground. All chatting and grumbling away to each other in their throaty way – not at all bothered that I was only 20yds from them. Great characters.
Nice to see. I’ve seen grouse in ‘packs’ fairly frequently in Scotland. I believe it’s known to coincide with harsh winter weather when they leave their territories on the moors.
I was also told that sometimes, after the bad weather has passed, they can sometimes return to a different moor.
Early one morning sitting by a water-hole in the Oman desert hoping for sandgrouse to appear. A magical experience. If our red grouse were that wild I’d make the same pilgrimage to our Scottish uplands.
Mar Lodge called it ‘packing up’ which had me confused for a while. Does seem a bit surprising given the weather they must be used to.
It’s probably a precautionary behaviour , if the situation worsens they are not caught on the hop.
In times past , horse drawn harrows would be used to break the snow up and expose the heather, even so birds have been recorded in the middle of Sheffield in particularly harsh winters, and Jack Robert’s reckoned his had got caught in a wind, and flown from the Cat and Fiddle, out to the Irish sea.
Ptarmigan will pack up, even well into the breeding season, if conditions dictate.