Black Grouse at the lek

Migration in Manchester is a brief spasm of hope after the dreariness of winter.  We get so little of note passing through that every unusual bird is an opportunity that can't be passed up, and we have such small populations of breeding summer visitors that their return in late March through April is a noteworthy event.

The thing that catches me out every year is how long after other places get their migrants Manchester joins the party.  It seems that migration naturally occurs across coastlines and then fills in from there, but it's still a strange moment when I realise that Swallows, House Martins and Wheatears are all present hundreds of miles north of here without ever occurring here.  In my head I still have a childish picture of the UK filling up, a huge cup filling with water like some cheap TV graphic starting on the south coast and progressing evenly up the country.  The reality, when I stop and actually think about it, is of course much more nuanced than this. Weather conditions, individual birds making choices, and the state of observation on the ground mean that migrating birds are obviously more naturally varying across their range.  

All of this long-winded preamble is to say that we haven't had any migration here yet, so, as with most years in March, I feel like I need to go a little further afield to see anything.  When Lee invited me to the Black Grouse lek at World's End I was excited to go.  My annual pilgrimage to Geltsdale en route to Scotland was cancelled when my Scotland trip was called off, so I've been missing out on these beautiful birds across early spring.  We met at our usual pub car park before 5am and made our way to the bleak moor top at World's End in the pitch black of night.  I always find that moorland has a repeating quality, a sort of ability to fox perception and disorientate, so we drove past the unofficial viewpoint for the lek and only a quick bit of eBirding turned us round to where the grouse usually display.  This made me laugh: Black Grouse do not appear on eBird because as a rare breeding species eBird is being responsible and trying to prevent disturbance.  However, if someone is going to name a local birding "hotspot" as "Black Grouse Viewpoint" that sort of gives the game away a little.  World's End is aptly named.  It genuinely feels like civilisation has been abandoned in the rear view and there is nowhere else to go except the biggest sky across a plateau of autumn colours.

As we approached the viewing pull in that we had passed not two minutes previously Lee clocked the male Black Grouse already on site.  We must have driven past them and not seen them in the dimness of a cloudy and drizzly first light.  We pulled up and being as quiet and still as possible positioned ourselves with windows open to view the lek of seven males squaring off, weird bubbling calls carrying on wind blowing from behind the Grouse and towards us.  It's such a genuinely natural sight, a sight rooted in the wildness of north Wales, a fitting and deeply connected spectacle to watch on the soil and short grass of the moor and at the same time it is completely otherworldly.  The beautiful deep blue sheen on the black plumage is not a colour I have ever really seen in birding in the UK.  There are birds with iridescence and the green or purple sheen of a Tufted Duck, a Scaup, a Magpie or Raven is a delight in itself, but this is a special colour reserved only for Black Grouse and it seems to almost glow from within, with such a deep darkness.  

Perhaps my love of them is the intensity of everything to do with this bird: they live in such an extreme of UK environments on wind-whipped moors; their colours are rich, contrasting between deepest black, the most indigo of blue sheens, the crisp white tail feathers, and the bright crimson of the combs above the eyes.  Their shape is intricate, impractical, changeable.  Sometimes they appear dumpy, small, hidden away in tufts of foliage that surely can't obscure a whole grouse; then they're puffed up, plumes of feathers held away from the body, fantastical shapes as they display.  A French lace rosette of a white undertail, a black lyre curving away in the black tail, white feathers starkly exposed as the wings are held half spread down and back.  Their movements are choreographed violence, clockwork jerkiness and hesitant half-steps towards an opponent that bubble up into full fledged fights.  Sharp bills and strong feet clattering in high speed martial artistry that drives some birds to flap up off the ground.  Their head postures, high in threat, low in intent, aggressive and submitting in turn until the centre ground is held by the most imposing male who becomes cock of the lek.  

And then they fly, flushed by Canada Geese lumbering over the hillock behind the lek area and as one the seven males fly, showing their explosive speed and the gorgeous curves of those tail feathers.  Nothing about a Black Grouse is a half measure.  It's all intensity, all impossible to take your eyes off, and, but for the biting wind and increasing rain, I could have stayed to watch the whole spectacle.  

But north Wales has riches of birding to explore and we found ourselves near Rhyl to pay homage to a Lesser Yellowlegs that's been present on the same mud flat for some three months.  As we watched this young wader feed and avoid Shelduck on the silt we scanned through Black-tailed Godwit, Wigeon, Redshank and Dunlin hoping for some sign of migration, and we found it, though not in the water birds.  A male Wheatear hopped up onto stiff grass stems on the very edge of the water and flushed away north.  My first of the year, I always find Wheatear uplifting.  It's the start of spring, and longer days, and the changing of the seasons is something to be aware of and celebrate.

With time shorter than we would have liked we made our way to Burton Mere RSPB reserve.  I like Burton Mere, and I've had some excellent birding experiences there, and this was no different.  Barnacle Geese on the marsh, a Mediterranean Gull in the Black-headed Gull colony, and huge numbers of Avocet started us off well.  Siskins calling in flight overhead, noisy Cetti's Warblers and Ravens circling above were the sound track to our search through a large flock of waders.  The composition of resting flocks on Centenary Pool is fascinating, with a circling of Knot, Black-tailed Godwit and Redshank constantly vying for the central and safe position in the flock.  A couple of Ruff made frisky runs between the bodies of the larger Godwits, and at the extreme right of the flock were the silvery forms of six Spotted Redshanks losing their winter silver and gaining the star-spotted black of summer.  Three Bar-tailed Godwits arrived and immediately ran havoc amongst the taller Black-tailed Godwits.  We would never have seen these but for the help of friendly birders in the hide who picked them out in flight and were happy to share their skill with us.  Eight Sand Martins circled against ominous clouds and as the rain set in we took our leave to search across Parkgate saltmarsh (with a chippy lunch - cheers Lee!).  Directly opposite the chippy we lucked across two Spoonbills - one of those days where it just all comes together.

By the time you read this, I'm hoping Manchester migration is underway.  Though judging by the snow and hail currently lashing down my street it may be a little longer before spring is really here.