Video: ‘This land is better than the Amazon jungle or a coral reef. It’s my haven’

WE’RE close to heaven in many senses. The steep cushioned hillside of Rosedale, one of Yorkshire’s most beautiful spots, falls away to our left. Above us is only bright blue sky. In the distance a couple of walkers follow a track that skirts the rich heather moorland. The only noises to stir the otherwise glorious stillness are the cries of a few birds on the wing and the half-hearted baaing of far-off sheep. This is Spaunton grouse moor, 7,000 acres of spectacular upland on the estate of George Winn Darley near Pickering.

It’s a wild place, a mosaic of purple heather knee deep in places and short and stubbly in others, with patches that are burnt back almost entirely – surviving and thriving despite the worst excesses of the British weather. Completely exposed to the elements, the wildlife wonderland has in the last year alone seen the coldest December in 100 years that dropped below -20C. It has also experienced the warmest spring since 1910 and the sixth driest since records began, with ten solid weeks without rain. Insects hatched early and wildfires were a huge risk.

In May the mercury fell dramatically again, bringing gale force winds and hail storms. Insects were blown away before second hatching, and the summer has been generally cool, wet and windy. But despite this rollercoaster, the hardy red grouse – the prized game bird found nowhere else in the world but on these lofty, harsh heather moorlands – has bred well, dodged the threats or weather and predators and looks to be in plentiful supply, ready for the shooting season that officially starts this Friday.

Around 75 per cent of the world’s remaining heather moorland is found in Britain – but this habitat declined alarmingly over the second half of the last century. The Moorland Association was set up in 1986 to co-ordinate the efforts of moorland owners and managers to halt this loss. There are 14 grouse moors stretched across the North York Moors National Park, and they, together with other such moors in Yorkshire, account for a third of the grouse shooting economy of England and Wales, which overall generates £67.7m. The figure looks set to increase this year, according to the Association.

In these remote areas of the country, where jobs are sparse and farmers are finding the going tough, the income generated by grouse shooting is not a frill but a necessity. On average an estate will be able to offer wealthy clients and other guests eight days’ shooting across a season that stretches to mid-October in North Yorkshire. Eight “guns” (shooters) on Spaunton Moor will pay £20,000 between them for a day’s sport, and each forks out a further £170 a brace to take their trophies home. Other birds shot are mostly sold to game dealers who supply restaurants and specialist shops. The shoot helps to keep the grouse population within a scale that the moorland can sustain. The grouse is a wild bird, as is this heather moorland. But the health and abundance of both are actually a testament to careful year-round management.

More than £52m is spent by grouse moor owners to keep these treasured landscapes healthy and hospitable to the amazing array of wildlife they support, which includes merlin, golden plover, hen harriers, curlews, wading birds, dragon flies and an array of other insect life that young grouse love to feed on.

Today head gamekeeper George Thompson is out on the moor with dog handlers Steve Smith and Paul Jowett and two lively English pointers, who can’t wait to get out of the 4x4 and into the blossoming heather. The purpose of the outing is to count the grouse. The team were out in the spring counting how many pairs of grouse were on the moor, helping to make predictions of how the population would grow in time for this year’s season.

At this time of year, not long before the official opening of the season, the keepers walk the moors again to locate the parents and young, flush them out and make a calculation applicable to the whole moor based on the population found in specific sections or “drives”.

From these grouse counts the number of shooting days (that have attracted the wealthy from as far afield as the US and Germany since Victorian times) will be fixed and the local hotels, caterers, pubs and other businesses involved in supplying shooting parties with equipment and other services can relax. As well as supplying the demand for shooting and from those who want to buy grouse, the keepers’ job is to ensure that the optimum amount of males and females are left to breed.

The two pointers spring off, their noses twitching as they zig-zag through the prickly vegetation. They can sniff out a young family of grouse at up to 40 yards. Steve and Paul, whose usual jobs are electrician and labour respectively, control the dogs with whistles. The dogs pinpoint a covey of birds from different angles, with the precision of lines meeting on a graph or map.

A signal from the whistle holds the dogs in position, stock still with tails horizontal. When the men catch up, they then flush out the birds, and the keeper counts the number flying up out of the heather. Mum and dad are followed by ten fully-fledged 12-week-old offspring. Grouse can lay as many as 14 eggs, but some are lost to predators.

The springers are off on the scent of another covey, their training and the whistles preventing them from simply finding and feasting on the birds. “From the moment they are hatched, there’s someone wanting to eat a grouse,” says George, who grew up as a townie in Middlesbrough, but visited the North York Moors with his family from the age of six. As a teen, he ignored football games to cycle out into the hills and learn about fishing and rabbits. At 16 he spent a year as a trainee gamekeeper but an employer who beat him sent him away into the building trade for a while. He eventually returned to gamekeeping and has worked on this estate for 21 years.

“Foxes, stoats, weasels... they like nothing better than a grouse chick. And if the parents are disturbed while nesting, then the eggs become chilled and the chicks are lost anyway. I love this place and I can completely understand why anyone would want to come and enjoy the sport here. If you play tennis then you would love to play at Wimbledon; if you’re into golf you dream of St Andrews and if shooting is your sport then you come to a beautiful grouse moor like this. It doesn’t get any better.”

On the day of a shoot local people benefit from casual employment alongside the professionals, performing tasks as beaters and flankers – to flush the birds out and corral them into the area in front of the guns – and pickers-up to ensure that all dead birds are collected. A staff of 25 is needed for the day, but the keepers are dedicated to working for 12 months to maintain the moor in the kind of tip-top shape that makes for happy birds and sustains an eco-system based on peat, which has been found to be the biggest carbon store in the UK. Over 100 years considerable areas of heather were lost through over-gazing, afforestation, and bracken encroachment. Owners of grouse moors will at most only break even on shooting party business, but these shoots and small grants mean moorland can be managed properly and loss of habitat addressed.

“Our job covers bracken spraying early in the year,” says George. “Then there’s the control of predators, the main ones being foxes, stoats and carrion crows. Heather is at its most nutritious at two to four-years-old, and we have to burn off some areas where it has become old and straggly, on a 10 to 15-year rotation. This means around four per cent is burned each year, but we only have around 25 days of suitable weather to get it done. At nesting time we stay off the moor and see to path repairs and bracken control.” Each keeper has, ideally, around 2,500 acres to keep them busy, and luckily there seem to be plenty of enthusiastic candidates when a job arises. George is happy with how the count so far. He’s also one of those rare people whose job makes him ecstatically happy.

“For me being a keeper is the dream job. “We are just guardians of the land, and keep it the best we can, and it’s something we all do for love, not money. But this is better than the Amazon jungle or a coral reef. It’s my haven.”

* See the grouse counters in action on the North York Moors, at yorkshirepost.co.uk/video