And there is a fair chance that a significant amount of moorland would be given over to forestry if it wasn't maintained for shooting.
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And there is a fair chance that a significant amount of moorland would be given over to forestry if it wasn't maintained for shooting.
What was the natural habitat of grouse before the forests were cleared then - they are indigenous aren't they, and dorsn't heather burning contribute to the erosion of the moors, and what would be so bad about having more trees instead of bare moors, especially luvly deciduous carbon storing woodlands? I'm not having a dig by the way, just wondering.
The heather burning is done to encourage growth - it's the young shoots that grouse eat - dunno where they lived before. Perhaps on heathland which does have heather on it, although obviously not as much as a grouse moor. The moors have been created to encourage loads of grouse to live there; enough to provide a fine few day's shooting, probably far more than would be around naturally.
Nothing wrong with woodland, I love it and wish there was more of it around Yorkshire, which is pretty short on wooded areas really. I used to live down south for a while, Kingley Vale and the New Forest were particular favourites of mine.
I'm not championing the shooter's cause, just explaining why we have such extensive areas of heather moorland.
Oh, and it's anything but 'bare'! As well as red grouse, we've got curlew, skylarks, wheatears, dotterel, lapwing, merlin, and various other bits of wildlife around our way.
And herds of wildebeest, roaming majestically across the moor...
I got the shock of my life when a large bird suddenly appeared on the lawn outside my window about 5ft from me. It was a bird of prey and as I live in a suburb of Blackburn hadn't seen one in my garden before.It looked a bit rattled, so I assume it had been bombarded by other birds to get it away from nests. I've seen magpies bombarding owls before.
Turned out to be a Sparrowhawk - I had time to just check on my laptop as it was plonked there.
After about 40s - a minute off it went.
No, I know , I meant bare as in not covered in trees. Anyway, thanks for that, spent today tramping over the Derwent Watershed. Didn't spot anyway wildebest mind. Spent a good few minutes with a hare about fifty feet away from me at Shelf Stones, thought it hadn't clocked me as the wind was blowing to me but had a good look at me as it loped past. They look a bit sorry for themselves at the mometn, all dappled brown and white between coats!
You're probably right, Xrunner, but as long as humans are around, we'll be interfering with nature and getting it wrong a lot of the time! hence the deer culls (no natural predators) being over-run with wabbits (bloody french!) and so on...
2 Red kites floating around 6 foot above my head today whilst accompanying my wife in her run round eccup res
Red Deer, 2 eagles , possibly 2 more but could have been Buzzards flying very high. On a run with Shaunetto we saw 20+ Ptarmigans, the most I've seen in one day before, A rare mountain Hare(For these Parts), Curlews, Black Grouse, Plovers. Also saw something I didn't reconise which after searching my books could only have been a Dotterel! Lots of mountain frogs including a rare alpine frog that had shed it's white skin and was in it's traditional muddy green:)
A dipper on the village beck :cool: Best view I've ever had of one of my favourite birds!