BLACK MAGIC
As we came over the brow of the hill, a covey of 10 black grouse got up perfectly on cue; within a couple of hours we saw 18 blackcock and three grey hens. “I didn’t want to guarantee it, so that was very pleasing,” said Neville Gill, owner and manager of 1,050-acre Williamston estate in Northumberland. Once widespread in England, black grouse could be found on lowland heath as far south as Hampshire. However, by 1998 there were only 773 displaying males left. These days they are confined to the uplands, where 96% of the remaining English population live on the edges of moors keepered for red grouse. So why has this red-listed species held on at Williamston?
Black grouse use a range of habitats provided by moorland fringe, including rough grazing and hay meadows on the slopes and heather and blanket bog on the hill.
Williamston has been in Gill’s family for 300 years and records of its 750 acres of moor being managed for grouse date from the 1850s to the present day. Since
