A couple of weekends ago I was planning to go to Dorset to find some raft spiders, but for various reasons I had to cancel that trip and instead I ended up in Yorkshire. The first day was spent up on the North York Moors and the date was the 12th of August, the start of the grouse hunting season. There are many issues around this ‘sport’ that would fill a post or two, from the illegal slaughter of birds of prey (Yorkshire’s moors are a sadly a hotspot for this), to the lead that is sprayed over the countryside in pursuit of the grouse, but I will not cover this today. I will say that the only shooting done by my friends and I was with our cameras.
The target species was red grouse, but as we drowve along using the car as a hide, they seemed to know the date and were keeping their heads down! Eventually we found this bird feeding not far from the road.
The next bird was a bit distant, but the sun shone briefly.
Eventually we found a small group of birds, presumably and mother and her well grown chicks.
My best photo of the day was this grouse in the pink heather.
Perhaps a not entirely natural scene, but beautiful all the same.
We did find another cooperative group of birds and actually left the car to carefully approach them.
Sadly soon after we got out a minibus full of tourists pulled up nearby and di the same, pushing the birds away!
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