A truly epic prey - the capercaillie

Last October my brother and I set off on what can only be described as an epic journey – we drove to Sweden to hunt the mystical, almost mythical cappercaillie (Tetro Urogallus). With an overnight stop in Copenhagen (a lovely city I must add) and an unplanned opportunity to shoot some wild boar and driven deer not far from Stockholm, we eventually got to our first (out of two) hunting destinations for the largest grouse species on earth.

We spent two days hunting in the woodland that surrounded one of our guide’s lodges and I must admit at times I wondered whether the bird existed being the only one in the group to not even see a bird flying into the horizon. The traditional Swedish method of hunting the capper is to shoot them with a rifle when they are perched in the tops of the trees after the cold winter has set in and there is no foliage; however, we had specifically requested that we would like to walk them up and shoot with shotguns – a concept that they believed made the chances of getting a bird very small.

The cappercaillie is an extremely wary bird that can be more difficult to stalk than deer – they spook very easily and as soon as they do, all you hear is the ‘whomp whomp’ of their wing beats and they are up into the trees. With the cold and the snow arriving in northern Sweden slightly later last year there were still a lot of leaves on the trees and on the ground which only made the birds more sensitive and once they were in the trees, they were as good as gone as they soon glided into the distance.

Ike the barking dog working ahead

After two blank days and a lot of walking we drove north to Swedish Lapland to our guide’s home. The plan altered slightly and our guide decided it may be best if we take a barking dog with us for the next two days of hunting. The barking dog wears a GPS collar and with its exceptional sense of smell it picks up the scent of the bird, scares it into a tree and continues to bark in an attempt to hold the bird in the tree allowing the hunters to stalk into a position close enough to take a shot.  Unfortunately for our dog, the birds had a different plan and insisted were disappearing well before we had the opportunity to get near enough to see them let alone get a shot off. However, we were now seeing birds (both capper and black grouse), knew they were in the area and felt as if we had begun to understand their habits better.

Keeping an eye out for silhouette 

As the light began to fade and we set off on our way back towards our vehicles, our dog Ike began barking once again – one last stalk before we to head home for a hot shower and a moose dinner. What happened next might not happen again in another one hundred trips and surprised the Swedes as much as it did us. As we were crossing one of the many bogs that separate the wooded areas, heading in the direction of the noise, one of the guides shouted and without any time to react a huge male capper screamed over our heads, eclipsing the setting sun and evading my last minute desperate shot – fortunately it headed straight for my brother who after a shaky first shot held his nerve and brought the bird down with a crash.

Once we had regained our senses and made our way over to the bird, it really struck us just how large and majestic a grouse they are: their colouring is magnificent, with the bulk of their body covered in speckled black, brown and grey feathers, they have dark metallic green breasts, large white oval spots on their wing bows and the same red skin that you find above the eye of a black grouse. The diameter of the cappercaillie’s neck is much thicker than any goose species found in the United Kingdom and they can be found in the wild to exceed 5kg’s with his bird weighing approximately 4 kg’s.  I was very happy for my brother to have got his bird, however I still had that feeling that I wished it was me that was standing in his shoes at that precise time and it was that feeling that kept me awake in bed on the penultimate night of our trip.

My brother Jonny with his cappercaillie cock

In the morning we set off in a different direction from the track that we used as a base amongst the miles of forestry. It was not long before we started to spot birds in the distance, getting up on the edges of the woodland way ahead of us as they either heard or spotted us or our dogs using their ultra-keen senses. I positioned myself on just inside the wood from the bog as I thought that it might give me the best opportunity of getting a shot at a bird heading for the open. My plan paid off as I caught a glimpse of a bird that must have got up ahead of us and was heading back along the wood, I quickly lifted the gun and managed to get a shot off through the gaps in the trees and to my utter delight the bird came down.

I could tell immediately that it was not a 4kg bird that I had just shot and as I walked towards it, I suddenly felt deflated at the prospect of it being a black grouse (still of course a fantastic bird but not the one we we were after) but as I got closer to pick it up, I caught a glimpse of the stunning tiger coloured plumage of a hen cappercaillie. To many, the hen bird is even more beautiful bird than the much larger male with their whites, browns, oranges and greys all mottled together to create the perfect camouflage amongst the trees, leaves and snow that surrounds them. The hen I had shot was a cracking specimen and I was chuffed to bits to have had the opportunity to hunt her – all of the effort from the past three days was in a heartbeat completely forgotten and it was difficult to get rid of the smile that remained with me for the rest of the day and appears every time that I think of that trip.

My hen bird's fantastic plumage

After that morning, the remainder of the day did not particularly matter to me, however it was filled with more incredible Swedish surroundings and some further action as my brother’s dog flushed him a black grouse that he took nicely as it darted its way through the trees.  That night after we had warmed up by the fire, filled ourselves to the brim with Swedish meat balls and readied ourselves for our 1,500 miles drive that would start early the next morning – we began to plan our next trip to Lapland and both concurred that we did not need to change anything as this was hunting at its purist and at its most exhilarating, where the prey is challenging, beautiful and delicious … perhaps we will fly we agreed.