Black Grouse

     The Black Grouse also known as the Blackgame or the Blackcock, is a large ‘Gamebird’ in the Grouse family. It is a sedentary species, breeding across northern Eurasia in moorland and bog areas near to woodland, mostly boreal forests. The Black grouse is closely related to the Caucasian Grouse, that occurs in extreme south-eastern Europe and adjacent regions.

     The male Black grouse has glossy blue-black plumage, white wing bars, a lyre shaped tail and white under-tail coverts. He also possesses distinctive red wattles over his eyes and makes a bubbling Pigeon-like rroo-ooo sound known as ‘rookooing’ during courtship displays. The females are greyish-brown in color and smaller than males, with slightly notched tails.

     In early May, female Black grouse lay between 6 and 11 eggs in a moss-lined scrape in the ground concealed by vegetation. The young hatch 25 days later, and are fully independent after a further two to three months. Female Black grouse take all responsibility for nesting and caring for the chicks, as is typical with ‘Gamebirds’.

     Black grouse cocks’ tail feathers have been used as popular adornments for hats worn with Highland Dress, since late Victorian times. These hats are still worn by civilian and military pipe bands as a part of the cultural traditions there. The Black Grouse has 7 subspecies that are distributed across its habitat range.