Grouse Prospects 2024

Writing this in the third week of June is always difficult to actively foretell how the Grouse season is going to be. However, this year is probably easier than most. In short, this is going to be overall (and there are going to be a few exceptions – see below) a pretty grim Grouse season.

The cause is as usual, a combination of factors. The first reason is that where there were good quantities of grouse in 2022/2023, these birds were not overall in great condition going into last winter. The worm burden (and this is where there have in some areas been some very good quantities of Grouse in the last couple of years), is increasingly high and in some places unbelievably high. I have written before regarding the necessity of the Hen Grouse to be in really good condition, firstly to lay the right number of fertile eggs and secondly hatch and then rear her chicks. Finally, even though Grouse are a sub-arctic bird, they are very reliant (particularly when taken in conjunction with what I have written above) on the weather. Whilst this is very much a generalisation and there have been areas with much more benign weather, overall May and early June were horrendous months for rain in the uplands as well as having pretty constant low temperatures. What young Grouse cannot cope with (and nor can low lying nests with eggs in them), is continuous heavy rain. This year we had that in abundance. Indeed, it was until well into June, that you could find any run of dry (let alone warm) days. In West Northumberland, we had five inches of rain on one Estate in one day at the end of May. If the peak hatching date in the Country is May 21^st, you will appreciate how disastrous that is. Slightly further West, the Met Office recorded 6.5 inches of rain in the same 24-hour period! Whilst some early broods and some very late broods may have escaped this, on those Moors where there was continuous heavy rain, the broods have been decimated. This is mostly due to the young Grouse chicks getting wet and then cold, but also there has not been the required quantity of abundant insect life, which they need in the first week or so of their lives. The fact that the hens were not in A1 condition has not helped either. 

However, it is not quite despair everywhere as there are a few areas where Grouse have bred well. However, these are only a very few areas and in the main the picture is very grim. Our projection is that the Peak District Moors are going to show a modest upturn. The same with the North Yorks Moors. The latter being a much drier area and with a very shallow peat burden, meaning that water does not stand on those Moors anything like it does on the high Pennines. 

Continuing this run up the East Coast, one would have thought that the Cheviots would have been okay, but we do not think that they are. The Lammermuirs are going to be patchy with SOME Grouse, but generally off a disappointing base last year. Angus is looking a little better with some Grouse in places. It is a little hard to tell going further North, but probably do not expect very much. Coming down the West side, we are not at all optimistic by many of the Highlands Moors, to include in Morayshire and Invernesshire (but there are going to be better areas in both of those Counties), modest but with hopefully some Grouse in parts of Perthshire and looking quite nice on one or two Moors in the South of Scotland (but not in the Moorfoots we think). South of the Border, we think that the North and Western Pennines are generally going to be very poor, particularly the further west you go. Some Moors in the Eastern Pennines might be surprisingly good. We very much doubt that the Trough of Bowland is going to be very exciting either. 

As usual, there are going to be winners and losers, but overall, this is going to be a very poor Grouse season. Whilst we are always wanting to have a stock to breed from next spring, IF that stock is not one of fit and healthy Grouse, then one has to question as to whether it makes sense to leave that sort of stock to breed from. It might take an extra year to achieve a good recovery by further trimming that stock down (and where the adult Grouse are in really poor condition, we do suggest shooting early and bringing in a good length of drives, so that it is the old Grouse that are shot rather than the young Grouse). It is much better to leave a small but healthy stock to start the recovery from, rather than trying to leave a bigger wormier stock, which will merely continue the cycle of poor productivity. We would also strongly suggest on these moors, do not use medicated grit this year.

All in all, 2024 will we think be a Grouse season to not remember for any of the right things!

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