A Dying Breed?
Being irritated even by the shadow of an opponent…a typical male black grouse during the lek
As a passionate hobbyist wildlife photographer, I cannot help but feel things used to be more light-hearted and joyful. All I needed to do was to pick a wild animal or bird I wanted to see and find out the best location to see them.
But as you progress, you naturally want to see something a bit more challenging. Sadly in most cases, they are more challenging because their numbers are declining due to habitat loss, and in some extreme cases, like Capercaillie, you are banned from approaching their territory for fear of disturbing them even further into extinction. Learning such unfair misfortune of the wildlife creatures you admire, you naturally become more politically aware and motivated to know what has gone so terribly wrong and why the flurry of environmental protection measures put into action are not delivering the results they are designed to deliver. Perhaps such frustration and indignation I felt recently guided me towards this excellent book by Guy Shrubsole, Who Owns England?. He looks at the various land-related problems of England today including the housing crisis and failing conservationism and trail them to the archaic and unfair land ownerships where so much of the land mass is held by a small percentage of owners of certain attributes such as landed gentry, nouveau riche, etc. These owners of massive land, often shrouded in mystery as they do not directly own such landholdings but do so through offshore tax havens, are given generous tax incentives and farming subsidies while placed under no public accountability or scrutiny whatsoever. More on this book later.
Going back to the original topic, the black grouse is clearly one such bird species having a hard time in Britain and their conservation status is amber. Their range, once said to have included the south of Britain even Wimbledon Common, has now shrunk so much that they can only be seen, if you are lucky, in the northern uplands such as the Pennines, north Wales, and Scotland. Although what inspired me originally were the series of photographs taken in Finland, I wanted to see what the British black grouse lekking scenes were like. So I booked a workshop and drove up to the Pennines.
A landscape shot near the lek site. An idyllic sight or the civilisation encroaching on the already tightly controlled green environment to suit the human needs?
Several years before this trip, I did a self-drive trip to the Scottish highlands and spotted red grouse relatively easily. Naturally I wondered why their close cousin, the black grouse, wasn’t doing so well. After all, it seemed the feather colour was the only differentiator. How little I knew then about their different needs. The black grouse seem to prefer one continuing belt of varying terrains and vegetations, rather than one fixed type of terrain. This display site male black grouse use (generally referred to as ‘the lek’) is a small flat arena on a sloping hill dotted with rush and this seems what they prefer.
Spotting red grouse in the north is relatively easy as long as you stay in your car.
You could even get a close-up shot like this provided you stay in the car so as not to spook the bird.
In fact, during this trip, too, I spotted some more red grouse relatively easily as I drove around the moor. Spotting the black grouse, however, is no walk in the park. You must be committed. Committed enough to wake up at 3:30am that is. On my first day (or night?) I was very apprehensive so I jumped out of bed and started getting ready straight away as soon as the alarm went off. As I made my way downstairs, John, my nature guide/host gave me a flask of freshly brewed coffee for me to take. In his Land Rover Discovery, we headed towards the lekking site which was 40-minute drive away. The reason why we wake up so early is roughly one hour before dawn the male birds will start gathering around the lek site. So we need to be ready before them, having assembled two purpose-designed birder’s tents, complete with a folding chair each, with camera gear on tripod. It might sound straightforward but muddy soil, strong wind and darkness made what sounds like an easy task a bit of an unfair task from a Japanese TV game show from the eighties. And deciding where to position the tent was very difficult. With rush mounds everywhere, once you’re placed, you become committed. The action might happen behind you, and although the tent has four openings for your lens, depending on where the birds decide to have a display fight, you might not have a clear line of sight because of the vegetations. John’s knowledge, therefore, was very useful as he knew where the males tended to display fight from his recent experiences. He told me of his frustration from his early days when he was still testing out the lek site where the action took place right behind his tent with a rush obscuring his line of sight.
My father used to say birds in general don’t have great vision at night. As I waited patiently inside the tent trying to kill off the sound of me breathing in case the birds might hear me, I had to chuckle at the absurdity that must run in the family. The male black grouse, as John had said, started to fly in and land on the site one by one despite the darkness, and my breathing apparently didn’t bother them at all.
One by one the male black grouse started to land at the lek site.
Based on John’s advice, my lens of choice was 400mm F2.8. There is always the fear that you might end up wanting a tad more reach when you don’t pack your longest lens. But one of the males came up so close to my tent almost filling up the entire frame so that was an unnecessary worry. I was also reminded, when wild birds are single-minded, they don’t even notice the strange camouflaged tent that hadn’t been there the day before. They all fan out their lyre-shaped white undertail, making the trademark bubbling cooing calls aiming at the still dark April skies.
Soon afterwards, they start firing their aggressions towards each other. The lekking or breeding display, is apparently done daily throughout the year, naturally peaking in April to May to coincide with their mating season. In addition to the main purpose of determining the priority of access to females, apparently it’s also a fight to determine hierarchy amongst the local males. John told me that there had been a spectacularly aggressive fight already before my workshop. The most dominant male claims the centre stage, a big open clearing in the middle, appealing his dominance and superior beauty to the local females, while also keeping an close eye on the lower-ranking males lurking and hiding in the rushes nearby.
A scuffle breaks out occasionally, in this case, between the dominant male on the left and a challenger on the right.
As the day breaks, the dark veil that once prevailed over the land is lifted revealing the protagonists of the lek. The bubbling and cooing calls are now more constant and often accentuated by the threatening hissing sounds which accompany a short burst of flight or jump.
A proper face-off.
A typical short burst of flight performed to scare off the competition. No disrespect to the male but slightly comical, too.
The challenger deals a spectacular aerial counter-offence against the attack from the dominant male on the left-hand side.
John, despite being so fortunate to live close to the lekking site in Britain, told me of his desire to go and see the black grouse lek one day somewhere in the Nordic country which is said to attract well over twenty birds in one spot. Although I could totally understand that sentiment, I felt a bit sad. Sad that the number of black grouse is dwindling in Britain, and sad that rather than trying to reverse the situation, passionate birders and photographers in Britain seem all too happy to pay money to our neighbouring countries to get the shots they want - which I’m sure goes some way to boosting the bird populations in such host countries.
Where you choose to photograph the black grouse, too, could have ramifications on the populations.
Whether we like it or not, we must accept that money is at the core of everything including wildlife conservation. If there is no money in it, there’s no incentive for the estate owners to comply and conserve. Humans have domesticated certain species of animals and plants because they helped them make money. But this is the exact opposite of biodiversity - just imagine what kind of grains or meat you eat on a daily basis, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. In order to efficiently farm and grow a select number of species for our own benefit, we alienated other species and rendered the land more or less unsuitable to them. This is where we stand in the majority of cases at present time, and hence I had no difficulty spotting red grouse in the North as their numbers have been aggressively boosted by the shooting estates through various practices including the damaging heather burning and persecution of unwanted predators even if it meant illegal. If growing the number of black grouse brings in more money from people willing to pay to see the birds, then naturally by the force of capitalism the gross imbalance of 230,000 breeding red grouse pairs as opposed to 5,000 lekking black grouse males should start to shift.
However, such financial incentive alone could easily misguide us. Rewilding, restoration, conservation, however you call it, it’s the process of trying to rebalance the imbalance created by humans over millennia.
Does the class divide entitle people with vested interests in land to take sceptical views on climate change or will the science prevail in the end?
Unlike the distant past, we now demand a lot of our limited land - we use it to produce food, extract resources and minerals, carve out a space to live, and we now must see it as a means of carbon sequestration and achieve biodiversity, too. Guy Shrubsole’s assertion that there should be a complete openness and transparency on who owns which land and how much in government grant and subsidies they receive couldn’t have come at a more critical moment. In the world where reducing carbon emissions is of paramount importance, natural carbon sinks should be seen and treated more as a common asset essential for all rather than as personal possessions of a select few. Peat land, for instance, can play a significant role in acting as a massive carbon sink for Britain. When confronted with the simple fact that just 124 owners own 60% of England’s deep peat, and around 1,000 own a third of England’s woods (both quoted from www.whoownsengland.org), am I the only one who fears that we might be at the whim of these landowners who might point a torch to the massive peat land they own and demand more tax payers’ money?
Mark Twain reportedly said ‘Buy land. They’re not making it anymore.’
They’re not making it anymore indeed. If anything, with the rising sea levels, we are going to lose more of it. If the climate doomsday scenario were to become a reality then would the riches on the higher ground be the only type of people that survive while those on the low land would just drown to death? That might sound extreme now but extreme doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
Will the black grouse be the dying breed or the current corrupt system that grossly favours and fattens the landed rich with no questions asked or condition attached?
The choice rests with every single one of us.
May this annual ritual continue and thrive for future generations to enjoy.
