Black Grouse

Another insanely early photo, but again with good cause. I had the immense privilege of watching 17 Black Grouse boys strut their stuff this morning at a lek (think grouse nightclub) on the beautiful Glen Tanar Estate. The guys fly in at about 5.30am, puff themselves up, delightfully scuttle around and pick fights with each other, all to impress the ladies. If you've not see their little scuttle before, it is one of the best things ever! The folk who filmed that video were a bit closer than I was for most of the time, or had some pretty crazy equipment. 4 lassies did show up, but didn't seem too impressed with the talent on offer!

This chap was just a wee toot I think (confirmed by Mike the ranger when he picked me up with a very welcome cup of tea!) - he didn't yet have all the tail equipment, or the fluffiness of red eyebrow. Don't think he quite knew what he was doing, and as a result did quite a bit of posing for me.

He's a wee bit noisy still due to the low light and high ISO; still need to do something about that in editing. I am without my own laptop at the moment (thankfully the laptop fairy has lent me one with Lightroom on it!), so will do a bit more editing then. Saying that, ISO 800 was quite low, considering I started out at about 6400!

I've now been up for 13 1/2 hours and still going (3.27pm). Totally worth it.