A globetrotting grouse guide

There’s a common fallacy in the fieldsports world that grouse shooting is a British speciality and that nowhere else in the world can you pursue these most extraordinary gamebirds. It’s true that the red grouse is an exclusively British bird, but its close cousin the willow grouse is a circumpolar species. It has a huge range, extending from Norway in the west, right across Scandinavia and Russia, all the way to extreme eastern Siberia. In North America, it can be found from Alaska to Newfoundland.

It is hunted in almost all these countries, too, except on the southern edge of its range in the Baltic countries and China, where it is protected. Estimating the annual bag worldwide is