Grouse Prospects 2020

With the season starting tomorrow, and the grouse counts having taken place it has been a little easier to predict what is going to happen on the Moors this coming season. Even so, any form of prediction where grouse are concerned often prove erroneous!

 

 

This year is proving to be particularly difficult to call, due to a combination of further heather beetle infestations - which are largely but not exclusively on the eastern side of the country - and reports of grouse broods reducing in number in recent weeks. Whilst some loss of chicks is expected, the scale of the losses this year is unusual and has occurred over most of the moorland regions.

 

Almost certainly this is due to the extended period of dry weather in the spring, resulting inh poor insect hatches, which does not give the young chicks the start they need. As a consequence of this and probably the preceeding very wet autumn and winter, heather which is the dominant feed of Red Grouse, is in much less good condition than we would normally experience. We believe these two occurrences are the main reasons why grouse stocks are so variable this year.

Whilst the overall picture is not very rosy, there will be good numbers of grouse in certain areas and it is not overall doom and gloom. Starting from the south, we believe the Peak District to be on the up after a pretty disastrous couple of years, but whilst there has been an improvement, grouse numbers will not be back at their 2017 levels.

 

The Trough of Bowland will be similar, whilst the Pennines - both north and south, are very mixed. There are moors in both areas with good to really quite good numbers of grouse, but this is definitely not a record breaking year and there are more moors which are reporting poorer prospects, than those feeling very buoyant.

 

Overall, the hard drier ridges seem to have fared worse and the wetter ground the best. This almost certainly reflects the implications of the long dry period in the spring and early summer. We are also seeing smaller broods on dry, lower lying ground as well.

 

After a number of very good years on the North York Moors, we saw fewer grouse last year. 2020 is looking poor to very poor there, with a number of moors having already cancelled. Heather beetle has been very bad in this area for the last couple of years and this has extended even further this year. No one alive has seen such devastation before and we really worry that this could continue next year, leading to almost a total heather loss.

 

The Cheviots are looking good and parts of the north-west Pennines are also good, but you quickly run into parts which are poor to very poor, again with the better areas being the wetter Moors. On drier ground, those broods close to “wet eyes”, seem to have fared best.

Over the border, the Lammermuir seems very mixed but not great and with some very glum keepers there. The Moorfoots are so:so, but we hear good things in parts of Perthshire, and the picture is certainly brighter up the A9 in Inverness-shire and Morayshire but from a fairly low base in 2019.

 

One northern Morayshire Moor is reporting average brood sizes of over seven young, which is very good for a Highland Moor. Ironically the “dogging” Moors in Caithness and Sutherland should be good (being much wetter), but predation levels in many of these areas are at such a level that chick survival is very poor, leading to very low pair numbers. Deeside and Donside are mixed, again better in places than last year but probably nothing too special.

 

Overall, we see this as a particularly mixed season, definitely with good grouse numbers in places, but generally not over good for most Moors. We would expect little October shooting this year.

 

 

However, if you are interested in grouse shooting this season check out their page on GunsOnPegs, or please do not hesitate to contact William Powell Sporting who have access to a fantastic range of moors with great stocks.