128 Northern Observations of Inland Birds 



of Scotland they seem to belong exclusively to the pine 

 woods. The Loch Tay woods, however, contain here 

 and there a solitary group of pines, and almost every 

 pine tree, if carefully searched, will be found on certain 

 days to contain one or more capercaillie. Other days, 

 noticeably damp and foggy days, not a bird is to be 

 found in the pines, the total capercaillie population feeding 

 on the ground, generally in the dense birch and hazel 

 thickets. They look enormously large when seen feeding 

 thus, as when suspicious of danger they have a curious 

 habit of standing straight upright, their necks fully 

 extended. Seen thus in the shadows of the forest they 

 resemble very closely grey domestic geese, the attitude of 

 alertness being very grouse-like. 



The capers sit closely when in the pine trees, and if 

 threatened by danger they are extremely clever in the 

 manner in which they stand close up against a fork or 

 limb so that it effectively breaks the outline of their 

 bodies, and searching for them from below the observer 

 has no way of ascertaining that *' that dark clump of foliage 

 is a capercaillie." They remain perfectly motionless so 

 long as danger is about, and I remember some little time 

 ago looking up into a fringe of pines for several minutes, 

 trying to locate a caper which I knew to be there. There 

 was nothing doing, however, and eventually abandoning 

 the search I made my way up the hill, where, from a 

 rocky ridge above, I looked down on the tops of the 

 pines I had just searched. What, then, was my surprise 

 to see not merely one caper but twenty or thirty hen 

 birds distributed about the branches into which I had 

 been peering ! 



I cannot speak from personal experience of capercaillie 

 shooting, as I have shot them only when in pursuit of 

 pheasants and woodcock. On such occasions they often 

 afford some very fine wing shots as they descend from 



