FOR LONGSHANKS, MAY YOU REST IN PEACE

I looked on Blip just as I was going to bed last night and was dismayed and shocked to see CanCarrier's entry. I am so sad. It was too soon, far too soon. I had not met Graeme or his wife but we'd had a flurry of emails and phone calls when I put up a blip of a Capercaillie, a difficult to see member of the grouse family, which we'd seen in Scotland. They soon followed the same path, to the same tree trunk and rock, and saw the magnificent bird too.

Today we went to the Black Grouse lek in the next county and though we saw them they were distant, so a Red Grouse was the best grouse shot I could get. So this photo is for Longshanks. A man I had looked for at every twitch we had been on, but who so often we missed by a day or two. Birding will never be the same knowing we will never have the chance to bump into you.

May you rest in peace Longshanks.