September 2009

AN unbelievable 13 inches of rain have fallen here in the month of August, which has made most jobs hard work. Drying saturated waterproofs — and not so waterproof clothing — has also been a major hassle.

Getting around the hill on our quad bikes has required some care though, as some spots have become impassable with constant use; getting stuck disrupts my day and, often, another keeper’s, too. We are laying slabbing from the local sawmill in the worst spots, which is the cheapest way of overcoming this particular problem.

The heather that has been beetled still looks grim, but at least the area has stopped spreading now that the larvae have gone down into the ground and started to pupate. If you scratch around under the moss and the peat beneath the heather, it’s quite easy to see the white pupae cosily over-wintering ready to wreak havoc when they emerge as beetles in the spring. We are waiting for a dry spell so that we can spray off some areas of Molinia and sparse heather that have been beetled. We will use Glyphosate to kill the grass; the heather is already dead but not dense enough to put a fire through it. Once desiccated, we will burn these areas and add some heather seed to supplement the natural seed bank.

The harriers have now left the moor, although we have seen one adult cock harrier passing through. I have seen goshawks on the edge of the moor, usually flying away from a freshly killed pheasant poult.

Foxes are beginning to move in as litters start to disperse, looking for territories. The cover is still very dense; when out night shooting, the thick bracken and rushes just allow a fleeting glance of eyes that disappear before it’s possible to take a shot.

We should have less bracken next year, as we did have a window of a couple of days when the helicopter was able to spray with Asulox. It was great to get an opportunity to go up with the pilot to point out the bracken beds that needed treatment and to see the moor from a new, aerial perspective. I’m not sure I would like to be in the chopper when he is actually spraying though — flying that low is definitely not for the faint hearted!

The grouse are becoming territorial and starting to pair up, with the cocks flying up in the air and planing down again to stake their claim. It’s good to see and hear grouse almost everywhere we go on the moor.

I saw my first brood of black grouse this year: a hen and three well-grown poults up at Lodgegill. However, unlike last year, have not seen any broods at the Blackburn end of the moor.