Williamson's Weekly Notes Aug 12 2009

Red grouse may have once lived in Sussex, since bones have been found in kitchen waste tips from the Bronze Age, three thousand years ago.

There was an effort to reintroduce them two centuries ago in 1816 and apparently chicks were raised, but the species was not successful otherwise.

Weather in the past few centuries may have played a part in confining the noble game bird to the western sides of the UK.

It is declining even more now in Wales due to the heavy grazing pressure by sheep which destroy heather on which the bird depends for food.

Those on Exmoor and Dartmoor were boosted a little by introductions in 1915-16, though previous introduction in 1820 were a failure. It will be interesting to see whether the new Bird Atlas now being prepared will give any records for the West Country.

Once it was thought that the red grouse was a separate species, confined to the UK and Ireland. It is in fact just a sub species of the willow grouse or willow ptarmigan which is found across America and Eurasia.

Management is exacting, requiring large areas of old heather in which the birds may nest and hide from predators, coupled to young heather that will produce the fresh tips the bird needs for food. It also requires special grit for its gizzard, where this does not occur naturally.

So when you visit Scotland or the Yorkshire moors, you will see the distant landscape striped dark and pale showing where long stretches have been burnt. Could we achieve this kind of management in places like Ambersham Common or St Leonards Forest? Hardly.

Also, the grouse would be wiped out by foxes. Today it is almost amusing to see the wide range of goodies manufactured for the grouse shooter a century ago as he was whisked happily north in express trains from the Metropolis.

Burberrys of London's Haymarket made special suits with pivoted sleeves and knicker-breeches. Martins of Edinburgh made "pannabelts" for ladies in which they could carry their husband's cartridges.

Spratts of London made game dispatch boxes of stout cardboard for guns to send grouse to friends. Ford made a special V8 shooting brake for the moors at 260 '“ King George VI had one. Regent Street jewellers made gold grouse brooches inlaid with diamonds showing the bird at the moment of being shot.

Giant whiskey or brandy flasks in solid silver for "shooting and the motor car" were made to contain one quart of spirits, to sustain the inner man during these expeditions into hostile and bleak country.

It still goes on I am sure, the guns today being at best dedicated country people with a few spare thousands, at worst, bankers with money to burn. At least it all helps to sustain life in the poorer districts of the north, and it keeps the red grouse in good spirits too.