The black grouse blogger has had to watch himself!

Many people think midgies are a nuisance and the more this summer progresses, the more I am starting to think that they are a serious and potentially life threatening liability.

In theory, the recent dry weather we have been having should have killed off most of these diabolical man eating insects, but instead they are thriving to create a plague of biblical proportions.

I have also seen a fantastic roe buck at the back of the farm.

He passes his nights nibbling off the leaders from my new silver birch plantation and something has got to be done about him for the sake of the trees.

The silver birches have grown so quickly that they have outshot their plastic guards and now the tender inches of stem and leaf are disappearing faster than I had thought possible.

Waiting out for him last night with the rifle, I watched the sun sink over the Galloway hills and shadows start to creep in across the bog.

I was hunkered in behind an enormous boulder when I realised that the wind had dropped altogether. Within minutes, my hands had been smothered with tiny black shapes.

It looked as though I was wearing lace gloves, and then the burning irritation started, creeping up my forearms onto my neck.

There were midgies in my ears and inside my nostrils.

Looking up, I noticed a six foot pillar of bloodthirsty critters circling above me. It was so dense that if the roe buck had been looking in my direction, he would have seen it as clearly as if it had been me standing in plain sight.

Puffing surreptitious gusts of cigarette smoke at them was no help at all, and I was forced to beat a hasty retreat.

The views expressed on Patrick Laurie's blog are the author's and not the views of Shooting Gazette, ShootingUK, IPC Media or its employees.

www.gallowayfarm.wordpress.com

There is a new/ old enemy for the black grouse.

All the time I've spent worrying about whether or not to shoot rabbits has distracted me from a major new problem.

The fox cubs are up and about, and the next few weeks are a perfect time to get on top of them before they grow wise and wily.

Heading out and about with the lamp recently, I have been deliberately keeping an eye out for crushed bracken or grass where the cubs have been playing, as well as monitoring likely looking rabbit holes and cairns.

On Monday night, I hit jackpot on a stand of heather far over the back of the moor.

Twinkling eyes sparkled in the gloom, but they seemed far too close together to be an adult fox.

Driving closer and closer in my battle bus, I saw that, whatever it was I was looking at was not in the slightest bit worried about my approach.

Then it dawned on me. It was a cub.

Three others emerged from the heather to peer at me, and I had skittled two over with the .243 before any of them knew what was happening.

Usually, the vixen barks as soon as she senses danger to call the cubs back to her side.

The single yap transforms the idle young ones into red laser beams, racing for cover in the thickest undergrowth available to them.

For whatever reason, her warnings only came after the second shot and she left half her litter in the heather.

It is easy to be sentimental about fox cubs, particularly since they seem to be a cross between puppies and kittens, but if the black grouse are going to get up onto the road to recovery, they have to be given a chance.

Into life that is....

The last few weeks have bought with them an explosion of life on the grouse moor.

Inevitably, the species which seems to have profited most from the recent warm weather has been the rabbit.

Until recently, two or three sullen adults were in evidence around the farm buildings. Now the short grass wriggles with little bunnies.

My initial reaction was to set about them with the rifle, but thinking about it in more detail, perhaps this isn’t the best idea.

An enormous number of rabbits feeds an enormous population of vermin and my first instincts followed the basic theory that removing the rabbits would remove the vermin.

However, looking into it, things are probably not that simple.

Grouse moors in the south west of Scotland are characterised by having their roots in traditional hill farming practices.

Stands of heather are scattered amongst pasture, and rabbits have a greater access to grouse habitat than they ever would on a well managed highland moor.

As a result, predators seeking rabbits are far more likely to encounter grouse than they would in the north.

It makes much better sense to leave rabbits on the farm to act as a buffer between the grouse and the vermin, at least until I can start to make real inroads on foxes and stoats.

I have fingers crossed that the greyhen is currently sitting in the bog behind the farm house, although the fact that I haven’t seen her for a month doesn't mean that she has laid at all.

She is so much harder to spot than the garish blackcock that it was only by accident that I discovered her in the first place.

Hopefully the foxes and stoats will be so busy on the bunnies that she will have some breathing space to rear her brood.

The views expressed on Patrick Laurie's blog are the author's and not the views of Shooting Gazette, ShootingUK, IPC Media or its employees.

www.gallowayfarm.wordpress.com