My favourite blackcock has been behaving very strangely recently. Looking back at last year’s blog entries from February, I see that by the beginning of March, he was getting on for full lek. This year, he is being incredibly bashful and is only lekking under thick cover. The only time I’ve found him out in [...]
Archive for February, 2012
Why So Shy?
Posted in Uncategorized on February 28, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Time To Burn
Posted in Land on February 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
We’re now getting into the prime heather burning season, but the last few days have been miserably wet and there seems to be no end in sight for the rain. I had a great day burning heather with a new moorland management project a few miles south of the Chayne, and I’ve been looking forward [...]
The Dancing Ermine
Posted in Vermin on February 27, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Throw away your camera – you’ll never take a better picture than this… Couldn’t resist posting this picture of an ermine which a friend found online and sent to me – I’ve seen my ferrets doing precisely the same sort of thing, and can imagine the same frantic hissing/honking sound. I feel quite conflicted about [...]
Spring Cleaning
Posted in Uncategorized on February 26, 2012 | 1 Comment »
What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than cleaning and disinfecting some pen sections? With plans to do some grey partridge rearing this summer, I brought in my small handful of pen sections last week and let them dry in the sheds. They held red legs this autumn, and following an outbreak of hexamita, [...]
More Signs of Spring
Posted in Land on February 26, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Continuing with the theme of changing seasons, I found the first cotton grass flowers of the year this morning up on the hill. The camera was wet and the photograph is not exactly a work of art, but it’s possible to get an impression of the weird silvery flowers just emerging from the stalks. In [...]
The Seesaw in Action
Posted in Vermin on February 25, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
A few days ago, my girlfriend’s quail met a sudden and disasterous end. Without warning, rats descended on the hapless birds and literally ripped them into pieces. There was none of the savage delicacy of a stoat or a weasel, which just puncture a hole in the back of their prey’s skull – the rats [...]
The Drummers Are Back
Posted in Snipe & Woodcock on February 25, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Winter is a bleak season up on the hill. For months at a time, the only sound is clocking ravens, so it’s a relief to hear the first stirrings of life which would finally indicate that spring is on the way. Up on a bleak, blue smirry hill this evening as the sun was setting [...]
Seesaw Traps
Posted in Vermin on February 21, 2012 | 1 Comment »
After a great year trapping stoats and weasels in 2011, I’m keen to try some new tactics. I’ve found that these little devils seem to be pretty territorial, so if one rumbles your trap site, not only will he avoid it but the fact that he is holding the area against incomers means that nothing [...]
Larks a Lordy
Posted in Wildlife on February 19, 2012 | 1 Comment »
What began as a trickle last week has now become a flood. Skylarks hung in every corner of the sky as I walked across the Chayne this morning, and it makes a refreshing change to hear something more than the occasional deep “clock” of a raven. It won’t be long now until the curlews are [...]
Whisky a No No?
Posted in Uncategorized on February 19, 2012 | 1 Comment »
I was somewhat surprised this week to hear that the company behind black grouse whisky (and the Famous Grouse) is ambivalent towards shooting and moorland management. The publishers of my black grouse book sent a representative of Edrington Group a PDF of the text and images in the hope that some sort of a tie-in [...]
