RED GROUSE 



Lagopus scoticus 



Red Grouse is the only species which is found only in 

 the British Islands, its nearest relative on the Continent 

 being the Willow Grouse. The Red Grouse or Muirfowl 

 is found on all the extensive moorlands throughout Great 

 Britain and Ireland, and also in the Hebrides and Orkneys, 

 but in Shetland it does not occur, though efforts have 

 been made to introduce it. 



The Red Grouse is the bird of the moors and heather-clad mountain 

 districts, and if it were not for the sportsman it would live a very quiet life 

 amid its native hills. It does not migrate in spring or autumn, and seldom 

 wanders further than the nearest field of oats, though in exceptionally hard 

 winters many birds draw down to the farms on the edge of the moors and 

 subsist on what grain they can pick up. The Red Grouse is not a conspicuous 

 bird on the moors; you may walk two or three miles without seeing one, 

 unless you happen to stumble right onto a pair in some little hollow. What a 

 whirring of wings they make as they rise, the male uttering his well-known cry, 

 1 gok-gok-gok-gock' ' go-back, go-back, back, back/' During the evening Grouse 

 may often be seen on the side of the road, or at small gravel-pits, picking 

 up tiny bits of stone, no doubt to aid in the digestion of their food. At 

 this time, too, they often perch on the tops of the walls; but, as a rule, 

 Grouse live almost entirely on the ground, and rarely perch on trees, unless 

 on some stunted birch or hawthorn on the edge of the moors. 



The food of the Grouse is chiefly composed of the flower and young 

 shoots of the heather, but in the autumn they eat large quantities of berries 

 and fruits found on the moors cranberries, whortleberries, crowberries, etc. 

 and take toll of the oats in the fields near the moors. When feeding, they 



