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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Capercaillie71" data-source="post: 1330099" data-attributes="member: 32437">I think you are right too.  I've had a look at maximum winter flock sizes reported in the North East Scotland Bird Report dating back to 1974.  Obviously these are affected by food availability as well as the numbers of birds present, but they do show a marked upward pattern:From 1974/75 to 1987/88, there were no flocks of more than 50 reported and the maximum flock size averaged about 25.From 1988/89 to 1998/99, the maximum flock size averaged about 70.  The biggest flock during that period was 300 in 1990/91, but there were also three winters when the largest flocks were single figures.Since 1999/2000 the maximum flock size has averaged over 350, and hasn't been less than 38.  The biggest flock being 1800 in 2004/05 .</blockquote>