Lek at me

Managed moorland is the place to observe an extraordinary mating ritual

- Jamie Blackett

THERE’S nothing quite so disconcerting as the sudden feel of a blackcock through the tent material.’ That should focus attention in the chamber of the House of Commons on one of our most endangered species, I think, as I press the tweet button. I am in a birdwatching hide and a 4lb Lyrurus tetrix Britannicus has just jumped 6ft in the air like a Zulu and landed on my tent.

In the rollcall of what fashionable Nature writers now call the British ‘soundscapes’ there can’t be many that can compete with dawn on a grouse moor in the North Pennines in spring. We crept into our tents just as the first hint of natural light started to replace the industrial glow of Teesside to our east. And we listened. Oystercatchers piping; larks steadily turning up the volume, a continuous, tinkling stream of noise above; magically, a pair of curlews mournfully casting their plangent clarinet adagio across the moor as they wheeled in the distance; a cock grouse go-backing as he held his territory.