JWN Andrewes
Poor Judge of Pasta.
Mar 29th
Decided to do the Black Grouse lek this morning, up at World's End. A good call, with decent enough weather and plenty of action. I sat and watched for a good hour and a half, their strutting, burbling and hissing occasionally spilling over into full blown dawn handbags. At one point the whole lot (all seventeen of them) suddenly upped and clattered away across the moor. I didn't see at first what had spooked them (a quick fore & aft scan for joggers on the road drew a blank) as I'd been looking down my bins when they took flight. A moment later the mystery was solved when an immature Goshawk took off from the edge of the lek site and cruised off over the horizon! Awesome! Less than a minute later they were back and carrying on like nothing had happened!
After that I headed up Esculsham looking for early Ring Ouzels but found none. Not to worry, time enough.
120 Black Grouse
Decided to do the Black Grouse lek this morning, up at World's End. A good call, with decent enough weather and plenty of action. I sat and watched for a good hour and a half, their strutting, burbling and hissing occasionally spilling over into full blown dawn handbags. At one point the whole lot (all seventeen of them) suddenly upped and clattered away across the moor. I didn't see at first what had spooked them (a quick fore & aft scan for joggers on the road drew a blank) as I'd been looking down my bins when they took flight. A moment later the mystery was solved when an immature Goshawk took off from the edge of the lek site and cruised off over the horizon! Awesome! Less than a minute later they were back and carrying on like nothing had happened!
After that I headed up Esculsham looking for early Ring Ouzels but found none. Not to worry, time enough.
120 Black Grouse