The art of grouse

While depictions of Lagopus scotica remained relatively elusive into the early years of the 19th century, this most sporting of gamebirds soon hit its artistic apogee, inspiring generations of painters, sculptors and craftsmen

- Robin Hereford

COME HIGH summer, the sportsman’s thoughts head to the purple-hued moors of Scotland and Yorkshire, the anticipation of the Glorious Twelfth building steadily. Guns are given their (inevitably) last-minute service, sleeves and cartridge bags dusted off and refilled, and a couple of fishing rods are added as an afterthought to the ever-growing pile of kit that will be bundled into the boot of the car for the journey north. The quarry? Lagopus scotica: that mythical gamebird, the red grouse.

The grouse’s ancestors evolved in the Pliocene era, around two million years before their eventual predator Homo sapiens appeared in North Africa. Only recognised as a distinct species of the Lagopus genus by the ornithologist John Latham in 1787, the red grouse seem to have kept their heads down in their remote highland strongholds. They were only lightly hunted during the Stuart period, featuring as an occasional supplement to the diet of those living in and travelling through the inhospitable moors the grouse make home. Unlike the more accommodating pheasant or partridge, grouse can't be bred in captivity, and this allowed it to lead a discreet way of life off the sporting radar. Indeed, this mysterious ground-dwelling bird avoided serious artistic attention until the 18th century.

One of the earliest detailed depictions of a red grouse was executed by the Irish artist Charles Collins in 1737. Commissioned by Taylor White, a Nottingham-shire naturalist, to produce a series of watercolours of the birds of Britain, Collins perfectly delineates every detail of the bird's mottled plumage: a shimmering mosaic of bronze, brown, ginger and yellow, with the characteristic vivid red ‘wattle’ above coal-black eyes.