Late Lek

Two blackcock, hard at it at 5:45 this morning

Just worth mentioning in brief that I’ve just returned from a press trip up in Perthshire and had a chance to see what was going on at leks in the shadow of Schiehallion. It’s always a real pleasure to watch displaying blackcock, and even though the biggest lek I saw this morning held just six birds, it was a goose pimpling moment to hear that old familiar bubble on the heathery slopes above Loch Rannoch.

It’s getting on for being quite late for serious lekking this year, and while some diehards will display long into their moults at the end of June, the majority of blackcock are simmering down. I didn’t see a greyhen all morning, which is promising because they ought to be sitting tight at the moment, and the activity at the leks was fairly sporadic. It was unusual though from the perspective of a lowlander to hear a calving red deer hind bellowing away in the background behind the bubbles and sneezing.