The toughest grouse

The uplands of northern England and Scotland have their brief moment of glory in August, as Britain’s 11 million acres of heather moorland – 75% of the world’s remaining resource – burst into honey-scented flower. There is no finer or more magnificent sight than the great swathes of purple-clad hillsides, broken here and there by the black mosaic patterns of this spring’s managed burning, where, in the words of Robert Burns: “the moorcock springs on whirring wings”. An extraordinary little creature, the red grouse. Endemic to Britain, it is the finest driven gamebird in the world, hardy, unpredictable and blissfully unaware of the astonishing amount of attention it attracts. No other animal on earth can receive the same degree of annual press coverage – both positive and negative – or have such a volume of learned literature devoted to it. None can cause such swings of elation or despair, ecstasy and anguish; have such anxiety expended over its wellbeing; acquire the mystique and social status that draws sportsmen from all