Walking Up Scotland

From our January/February 2025 issue

In pursuit of Highlands red grouse

The dog dropped and froze in the same instant. After a pause, he eased forward carefully, one foot before the other in a judicious, slow-motion slink. This was not a Great Plains point, tall and high-tailed; it was Continental, canine belly not far off the ground and tail parallel to it. The heather, which a moment before had barely brushed the undercarriage of the Hungarian wirehaired vizsla, suddenly obscured the lower half of his body.

“They’re moving.” The vizsla’s handler spoke in a low tone. A shotgun action closed with a firm click, and the shooter stepped briskly forward, over/under at port arms, moving past the dog. Suddenly pressured—a state of affairs the vizsla had been careful to avoid—a red grouse brace burst from heather on the upwind side of the beat, and the wind swept them arcing away, past the gun and a quick 40 yards downrange . . . .

Because of their economic and social value, red grouse are carefully husbanded.

Skirling bagpipes and swirling tartans never seem far away in Scotland, waxing and waning with the mists that wreath Highland moors and mountains, at times scarcely a titch beyond the human range of hearing or vision. Mystical and historical are intertwined and entirely palpable; throughout my stay, it seemed that at any moment Brigadoon might actually appear. On this uncommon October day on the grouse moor, bright sunlight was unaccountably present, although it had been drizzling and wet in the early hours when we’d departed the cottage in the western Highlands for our assignation near the eastern coastline. To a mind molded by the scale of western North America, the concept of crossing an entire country west to east by car, on winding roads, in less than two hours was positively quaint. And although sunshine for the moment had banished mists, bagpipes and tartans, it remained entirely possible to sink thigh-deep into a boggy spot while scanning ahead for dogs and birds.

In the absence of a kind invitation like the one extended to me, wingshooting in Scotland is largely pay to play—again in contrast to much of the American experience. The grouse moors are famous for their driven shoots, traditions and sheer volumes of gamebirds. Walked-up shoots are quieter and less-complex affairs and more comparable to American upland outings. Our gracious host, Phil Ross, a member of the syndicate that leased shooting privileges from the historic Cawdor estate, had arranged with my friend and favorite UK dog handler, Georgina Buchan, to work dogs on his walked-up hunt.

The Hungarian wirehaired vizslas were well adapted to the bird density and style of hunting.

The route to Cawdor took us right past Culloden, where the Stuart forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie were crushed by an English army in 1745. Among Cawdor’s many claims to fame: in Shakespeare’s telling, Macbeth was Thane of Cawdor. Things would have worked out better for the Macbeths had they simply been satisfied with Cawdor rather than forsaking their many red grouse on the path to regicide and power. And not that I’d compare her machinations to Lady Macbeth’s, but somehow Georgina did contrive to add her husband’s favorite dog, Hatch, to her own canine pair of Poppy and Bertie for the day’s shoot.

Particularly as I’d worked professionally as an ecologist with a few North American gamebird species, I was intrigued to see the estate’s heather habitat—core for the grouse, as it is (slightly) drier than that in the sodden western Highlands—the red grouse themselves (which are actually a subspecies of willow ptarmigan); and the work of the Hungarian wirehaired vizslas, a very rare bird dog breed in North America. At home on the northern Montana prairie, sharp-tailed grouse are the principal gamebirds, along with side dishes of pheasants and Hungarian partridge. Mountain grouse—both blue and ruffed—are also a major part of my typical upland season, and work takes me to both sage grouse and North American ptarmigan country. Where did the red grouse fit in the broad grouse continuum, I wondered, and how would the vizslas handle their assignment?

Wind-whipped grouse offered plenty of sporting shots.

But first there were sartorial issues to overcome. Well-schooled by social media and American publications’ depictions of New World upland hunts, Lady Buchan—I mean, Georgina—was both certain and rather mortified that I would appear in her company on a storied grouse estate clad head to toe in blaze orange. I may have contributed to this concern by regularly sending her photos of “American formal shooting attire” from the hi-vis/personal-protective-equipment aisle at the local ranch-supply store. My instructions were firm: “No orange, no bright colours.” Fortunately, photographic responsibilities, particularly with canines, frequently require low-angle perspectives. Crawling about on knees and elbows while wielding a camera is typical, so is lying prone in mud, standing water or soaking-wet vegetation. The dark, waterproof outerwear that facilitates this sort of work was deemed acceptable for the outing, and the rocky, boggy, uneven ground would have put ankles at risk without sturdy hunting boots. In northern Montana hunting clothing, like the choice of bird dogs, emphasizes function over form. Conditions vary so dramatically during the season from hot to extreme cold that clothing choices are an exercise in pragmatism, not social acceptance. What I ended up wearing beneath my outer layer may not have complemented the tweed and waxed-cotton estate attire of my hosts, but no inspection was made and I was not called to account.

The pace was relaxed, and the dogs worked steadily in the rolling heather.

North Sea wind whipped the flushed grouse away, but Phil’s swing was as well-worn as his tweeds. The Beretta 12-gauge barked once and, despite the stout breeze, tumbled a bird. Georgina sent Bertie, the mark was accurate and delivery was prompt. She accepted the bird and passed it to Phil for inspection. Broken gun draped over an arm, he smoothed feathers, admiring the bird, then slipped it into the game bag. Poppy was next from our string of three, and she was sent on; the other two dogs fell in at heel.

Ahead, a rolling expanse of heather stretched for a mile or two, devoid of the steep slopes and crags farther west. It was sufficiently early in autumn that many forbs and sedges remained green; flowers still sprouted from the plants, including the heather. More than any other comparison, red grouse country brings to mind the sagebrush sea of the Inland West: both landscapes dominated by a low, evergreen, woody plant, with two gamebird species—red grouse and sage grouse—largely dependent upon a single plant species.

The low-tailed, slow-motion slink of a Continental pointing dog on birds.

There the comparison ends. In contrast to the laissez-faire US approach to sage grouse management, resulting in generally disastrous long-term population trends, red grouse are carefully husbanded, thanks to their significant economic and social value. Particularly on shooting estates, habitat is intensively managed with rotational burning to create a patchwork of heather age groups optimal for grouse production. In ecological terms, red grouse are more of an early-successional species than sage grouse; they benefit from the disturbance fire affords. Georgina constantly pointed out areas that had recently been burned, patchworks with heather young to old, as well as pastures that had been grazed hard by domestic livestock to the detriment of grouse. When Mother Nature cooperates with mild weather during the spring and early-summer reproductive season, the grouse density that results from the husbandry is impressive. As we made our way across the moor, every 50 to 75 yards a dog went on point and more grouse rose to be swept across the beat by the wind.

And so the shoot went. The pace was relaxed and enjoyable, the sunshine was warm, the shooting was sporting. Phil and Georgina were friendly and proficient, interested in the birds, chatting about the dogwork, focused more upon the form of the shoot than the bag. Nevertheless, the shooting was plentiful, and the vizslas were magnificently adapted to the bird density and this style of hunting. They worked steadily and didn’t get too far ahead; humans could comfortably keep up. They reliably found birds. They marked falls and completed retrieves graciously. The dogs’ coats, with long guard hairs, shed water from puddles and bogs. I thought of my own pointing dogs, who are used to ranging with much greater pace out to 500 yards or more to find game. The northern US Great Plains have many gamebirds, but the area is vast, so game is sparsely distributed and dogs need to cover ground. My setter and shorthair, fully functional within their own set of circumstances, would—like my typical hunting attire—be ill-suited to a Highlands moor.

The vizslas marked falls well and graciously retrieved grouse to hand.

On our westward return journey that evening, clouds and rain inevitably rejoined us. Scottish mist closed in. Sharing the dark back seat with a wet, muddy and thoroughly sleepy bird dog, it occurred to me that I had seen my own version of Brigadoon magic that day in red grouse and vizslas on an eastern Highlands moor.