The birds came before the sunrise. Black silhouettes against the soft light of a high moor dawn. Croaking, hissing, posturing, fighting. A dozen males facing off on dew-ridden turf, their tail feathers spread in full display, wattles blazing red in the half-dark. The females came later, first solo but then in groups, watching in silence before melting back into the heather. This was the black grouse lek – as visceral and as wild as anything I have witnessed in the British Isles.
Behind and around the drama, curlew circled and called, lapwings tumbled on the breeze, and redshanks scolded from unseen hollows. Skylarks sang, as they always do. And all this before six o’clock in the morning, before the coffee had cooled in its flask.
A Dawn Chorus Like No Other
It would be easy to open an article like this with the lek. It was dramatic, cinematic, unforgettable. But it would also be misleading. Because we did not have to wait until dawn for the wildlife to appear. It was there from the moment we arrived the day before, climbing steadily up into a quiet corner of the North of England.
Lapwings flushed from every fold in the land. Curlew crossed the road in loose pairs, or stood sentinel on the rushy fields. Redshanks piped their alarms from unseen places, and every mile brought more sightings. More birds. More evidence.
I stopped pointing them out within an hour. Everyone had seen enough to understand.
Not a Conference, Not a Jolly
This was not a shooting event. It was not a conference, nor a jolly. It was a conservation forum, held discreetly on a private grouse moor somewhere in the uplands of northern England. There were no guns, no beaters, and no driven birds. Instead, there were ecologists, farmers, land managers, volunteers, communicators and a scattering of interested misfits like myself. All of us had come to walk the land, ask questions, listen, and see for ourselves.
The event, part of the “Why Moorlands Matter” series founded by Tarquin Millington-Drake and supported by a cadre of knowledgeable and quietly passionate volunteers, offers something rare in countryside conversation: honest, practical dialogue between people who do not always agree.
Amy Green and I were there to record interviews for the CountrySlide podcast. Both of us are more than familiar with the British uplands. Amy, through her conservation work in North Wales, and I through my years working across remote landscapes in the outdoor sector. We have walked moors in all seasons and for all reasons — for work, for wildlife, for weathered paths that led us elsewhere.
But this was different.
Familiar Ground, Unfamiliar Abundance
From the moment we arrived, something was off-kilter in the best possible way. There was a density of life here that was almost disorienting. Not just the presence of birds, but their abundance. Their confidence. Their visibility. The constant chorus that seemed to follow us from hill to hollow.
We came to gather voices – but the microphone quickly became secondary to the experience. This was not a place for pre-scripted soundbites. It was a place where assumptions began to unravel, not through confrontation but through proximity. We stood where the birds stood, we saw what they needed and we spoke to the people who live with them every day.
And then we looked at the map, and we realised how exceptional this place was.
Who Isn’t in the Room?
Before the event, Tarquin had asked several of us for suggestions on who to invite. I put forward two names: the Conservation Officer for the British Mountaineering Council, and representatives from Mountain Training UK. Neither responded. Not even a courtesy reply. These are organisations I’ve been professionally involved with for years, and they are the primary touchpoint for professionals taking groups into the British mountains. Organisations that speak publicly and often about caring for our uplands.
So how do they expect to educate others about these places if they will not show up to learn about them themselves? How can outdoor bodies claim authority on land use, access, and stewardship while actively ignoring the most successful conservation outcomes in our uplands today?
It is hard not to see that silence as part of the problem.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
There are more curlew breeding in this one stretch of managed moor than in the whole of southern England. That is not opinion – that is census.
There are black grouse here in numbers that would be headline news if they occurred on a nature reserve. Lapwings, redshank, grey partridge, golden plover, snipe, oystercatchers, skylarks. A supporting cast of merlin, barn owl, and short-eared owl. Some years are better than others. This year followed a wet one and numbers were down. But still, the abundance was striking. Unavoidable.
It is not an accident.
The Hard Pill of Predator Control
The birds are here because the land is managed for them. Managed with fire, with grazing, with machinery, and yes – with predator control. That last part is always the sticking point. But it matters. A great deal.
The science is plain. Ground-nesting birds need habitat, food, and freedom from relentless predation. That third requirement is often the least palatable for the general public, and the least understood. But it is the difference between flourishing and fading away.
I spend a lot of time in the uplands of North Wales. We have black grouse. We have curlew. We have projects. We have meetings, we have volunteers – what we do not have is what I saw here. Because in the places I know best, we still pretend that you can recover red-listed species in landscapes dedicated to recreation. Given over to dogs off leads, to mountain bikes, to unbroken public access. We pretend that education is enough. That awareness will shield a curlew chick from a fox.
But it won’t. And it hasn’t.
Talking Past the Public
We talk a lot about conservation, and we are often talking past each other.
Shooting organisations have long argued that moorland management benefits biodiversity. And in many ways, they are right. But they do themselves no favours. Too often the message is tangled up with self-interest, framed for members, or buried in industry language.
Meanwhile, the opposition speaks directly to the public. Their stories are simple. Emotive. Persuasive. They say that moors are burnt, barren, devoid of life. They say the land is run for profit, that the rich shoot grouse while the environment pays the price.
It is an easy story to tell. But it is not true – or at least, not true everywhere.
The hard truth is that most grouse moors are operated at a financial loss. The harder truth is that these places, where the red-listed birds still breed, are often the last strongholds precisely because of the management done in the name of shooting.
The solution is not to put shooting first. It is to put the science first. The data. The breeding success. The outcomes. And to accept, however uncomfortable it may be, that the best results are happening on land managed for grouse – then ask why.
Let Them See It
But we cannot expect the public to be convinced by figures alone. Charts do not change minds, statistics are not stories. Wrap the science in good storytelling, in communication that speaks directly to the undecided audience and does not assume their opinion.
That is why this event matters. Because it shows, rather than tells. Because it lets people see for themselves. Because it puts them in a vehicle at 4am with a flask of coffee, watching black grouse do what black grouse have always done, and then asks them what kind of land makes that possible, what happens here that doesn’t happen elsewhere?
It is not scalable. We cannot bring everyone here. But we can bring the feeling. We can bring the story.
The Raw Footage of Conservation
This landscape is not perfect. It is not pristine. But it is full of life. Not in theory, not in potential, but in flight, in feathers, in nests, in calls.
Let the fell do the talking.
Just make sure someone is there to listen.
