BLACK GROUSE Tetrao tetrix

These attractive birds can be found along the moorland / woodland edge in Scotland in Wales. In England, they can also be found at the edges of woodland adjoining farmland. The males are sometimes called blackcocks because of their glossy blue-black plumage. They have distinctive lyre-shaped tail feathers which fan up when displaying to reveal a pure white fan of feathers. The females are known as greyhens and are slightly smaller with brown and grey plumage and a slightly forked tail.

During the spring, the blackcocks compete in a colourful and noisy display, for the attention of the greyhens at a lekking ground. Each day around sunrise they call, dance and posture, to attract the watching females, displaying their white tail feathers and with their wings trailing on the ground. The greyhens stand around the lekking ground watching and it is they who choose their mate

Black grouse eat a variety of plant foods including berries, buds and shoots and they prefer open woodland with widely-spaced trees with suitable ground vegetation. The females nest on the ground in a scraped-out hollow lined sparsely with grass. Up to 11 eggs are laid and the young can fly after approximately 45 days. By 90 days they are completely independent. In the wild, black grouse can live for up to 6 years

The numbers and range of black grouse in the wild has declined dramatically in the last few decades from an estimated 25000 lekking males in 1990 to 6510 in 1996 with numbers continuing to fall. This has been due to a number of factors including fragmentation of their habitat, changes in agricultural practices which destroy food plants such as sedges, rushes, sorrel, buttercups and clover, and disturbance at lekking grounds. We have a breeding programme here at the Highland Wildlife Park with the aim of working in conjunction with other breeders to build up a good stock of captive bred birds. Hopefully, breeding programmes like the one run here will be able to save the black grouse from extinction in the wild and give an insight into their behaviour and the natural resources and environment that they require for their survival.