It was a cold and frosty morning with not a breath of wind and since I was in
the area I thought that I would take a slight detour and visit a black grouse
lek in North Wales. I arrived about 20 minutes before sunrise and almost
immediately saw grouse at the lek site. I watched them from the car for the
next 30 minutes or so and counted at least 15 males.
I love watching these leks, the air is full of hissing and cooing noises and
the birds run around the lek site chasing other males. There's private battles
going on everywhere until eventually for some reason not obvious to me one
will turn tail and run with it's opponent in hot pursuit. That's not the end
of it though, one or both birds often spot other birds and join battle with
them. I don't know how the winners are determined, but presumably it's obvious
to the usually unseen females.
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