The displaying male fans a broad black tail vertically and gives accelerating clicks ending in a pop like a cork drawn from a bottle
The capercaillie's lek song; the pop is followed by a hissing wheeze.
Nature · Birds
Capercaillie
Resident · male to 6.5 kg
Tetrao urogallus — Phasianidae (pheasants and grouse)
The world's largest grouse, a turkey-sized bird of old Scots pinewood whose displaying male fans a great black tail and makes a bizarre sequence of clicks ending in a noise like a cork being drawn from a bottle. Hunted to extinction in Britain by about 1785 and reintroduced from Sweden at Taymouth Castle in 1837, it is in steep decline again and is now one of the UK's most threatened birds.
How to spot them
- ▸Huge dark grouse of Scots pine forest; the male slate-grey with a shaggy black throat beard and an ivory bill
- ▸Display song of accelerating clicks ending in a pop like a cork drawn from a bottle, then a hissing wheeze
- ▸Broad fan-shaped tail raised vertically at the lek — the black grouse's tail is lyre-shaped
- ▸The hen is large and brown with a plain rusty-orange breast patch, which the greyhen lacks
- ▸Now confined to Strathspey and Badenoch, with Abernethy Forest the stronghold
How to know it
The world's largest grouse, a turkey-sized bird of old Scots pinewood that lives on pine needles in winter
Capercaillie — Tetrao urogallus.
Shot out of Britain by about 1785 and brought back from Sweden to Taymouth Castle, Perthshire, in 1837
The capercaillie reintroduction, by the Marquess of Breadalbane.
Its Gaelic name means 'horse of the woods', for the clopping notes of the male's display
Capercaillie — from Gaelic capull coille.
Scotland's sixth national winter survey found only 532 birds, half the number counted six years earlier
Capercaillie — winter 2021/22 survey, RSPB Scotland and partners.
Killed in numbers by collisions with deer fences, which are now marked or removed in its forests
Capercaillie — a major cause of adult mortality in Scottish pinewood.
A hen larger than a greyhen and told from her by a plain rusty-orange breast patch
Female capercaillie, the classic confusion with female black grouse.
Quick-fire facts
- •Scientific name Tetrao urogallus; the English name comes from Gaelic capull coille, 'horse of the woods'
- •The 2021/22 national winter survey estimated 532 birds in Scotland (95% confidence interval 227–810), 52% down on the 1,114 estimated in 2015–16 (RSPB)
- •Red-listed in Birds of Conservation Concern 5 (2021), and added to Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act in Scotland in 2001
- •Hunted to extinction in Britain by about 1785; reintroduced with Swedish birds at Taymouth Castle, Perthshire, in 1837–38
- •It probably peaked at around 20,000 birds in the 1970s before collapsing again
- •Males weigh up to about 6.5 kg and are nearly twice the size of females — among the largest size differences between the sexes of any bird
- •In winter it lives largely on pine needles; chicks need blaeberry-rich pinewood to find insects
- •Abernethy Forest in Strathspey is the stronghold; it has all but vanished from the rest of Scotland
- •Displaying males occasionally become 'rogue' birds that attack walkers and vehicles
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- RSPB — Capercaillie Biodiversity Action Plan
- British Trust for Ornithology — BirdFacts: Capercaillie