July 2010

JUNE has been a spectacularly dry month — something we are not used to and in complete contrast to last year. This sort of weather is what wild game producers dream of. I am seeing more and more good broods of grouse on my rounds: the robust little chicks rapidly turning into poults and bursting into flight when surprised by an approaching quad bike.

In poor weather, whether wet or windy, it’s best not to disturb the grouse. But snares and middens have to be checked daily and, with the ever-present threat from foxes, we have to balance the risk of disturbance against the need to protect them.

Our optimism is such that we are talking about having a small, driven shoot day this season on the southern area of the moor where the spring density of grouse was up to 90 birds (45 pairs) of birds per square kilometre. This means that the shooting butts that have not been used for many years will have to be repaired. The butts here at Langholm are a very traditional design made from peat: mounds of peat covered in turf of heather and blaeberry, they mould into the hill and are less conspicuous than some more modern structures.
At the moment, it is too dry to try to reconstruct them, as the peat is hard and crumbly. What’s more, the newly cut turves would dry out killing the vegetation on them, so that job will have to wait.

Towards the end of June I started to notice the first signs of heather beetle larvae. The slight browning of the tips of the heather plant is a sure sign they have started their hungry rampage. Closer examination, and vigorous bashing of the heather into cupped hands, reveals the tiny yellow and black vandals. At present they are tiny but, by the end of July, they will be 10 times the size after gorging themselves on new heather, leaving great swathes of the moor looking like it’s been nuked. It also looks like another season will have passed before the Scottish government revises the law on out-of-season burning of heather moorland.

In other areas, the young heather has made a good recovery from over grazing by sheep and is looking good. The orchids have come back well in these areas, too, and have been prolific this year.

The radio-tracked hens that had lost their eggs to corvids have re-laid and some have hatched. As far as raptors are concerned, it’s a rollercoaster ride. The harriers have continued to confuse, as it’s turned out there was only one cock to three hens. Both the late hens nested, laid eggs and began to incubate. But, unfortunately, both late nests failed when the hens deserted their nests. It is believed that was down to a lack of food due to one cock trying to provision two further nests whilst looking after an increasingly demanding first brood. Fortunately, however, the first brood has been trouble-free. All six chicks survived and have been ringed. Three of the chicks have been fitted with the most up-to-date satellite tags and the remainder have been wing-tagged. The satellite tags, which have been provided by Natural England and will be monitored by them, should help to cast some light on the movement of birds from Langholm.

Merlins have done well with five nests having been recorded on the moor. These birds provide great entertainment when they guard their territory from all comers. Buzzards get a particularly hard time as these aggressive little spitfires make the buzzards roll in the air and offer their talons to any incoming threats.

Buzzards are ever present on the moor, hunting all day. Our scientists, Damian Bubb, Aly McCluskie and Paula Keane, have located several buzzard nests on the project area and the immediate periphery. Nest remains and pellets are being picked up for analysis.

I am pleased to report that a couple of broods of black grouse have been seen. The numbers of black grouse here at Langholm bucked the trend by increasing in the spring, so the kind, warmer weather should really help them as they are much more susceptible to bad weather than red grouse.