The Glorious Twelfth, protecting Ilkley Moor and grouse resurgence (From Keighley News)

The Glorious Twelfth, protecting Ilkley Moor and grouse resurgence

8:08am Thursday 13th August 2009 in Search By Ken Pickles

The arrival of the Glorious Twelfth reminds me of the moors of Ilkley and Brandup, my playground as a boy.

With the exception of Ilkley Moor they were all good grouse moors in those immediate post-war years and there were grouse on Ilkley Moor too but nothing to what there had been in the pre-war years when in 1934 the record bag for Ilkley was 1,502 brace and that was in the middle of the depression.

The gamekeepers were all friends of mine as I grew up in that shooting environment, helping with the butt building, heather burning and beating on shoot days when the retired colonels and majors who owned the moors came to enjoy themselves in August. The Twelfth was nearly always a hot, sunny day with the scent of the heather bloom almost as intoxicating as the hip-flasks and bottles of beer that appeared at the lunch-break. By today’s standard the bags of birds shot then were considerable.

Walter Flesher was, for 25 years, the keeper of Burley Moor. He had lost his right arm during the battle of Passendaele serving as a colour sergeant in the West Riding Regiment but he had the strength of two men in his remaining left arm as I witnessed him repairing butts and dry-stone walls.

Walter, a Burley man, was well known nationally for his appearance on television with naturalists Sir Peter Scott, James Fisher and others in popular nature programmes. On the five o’clock programme Children’s Hour on the radio, he was Ted Brock the gamekeeper, his unmistakable, quiet Yorkshire voice recognised by millions. He also gave talks far and wide and it is apparent now he was not just a gamekeeper and naturalist but one of the early conservationists.

John Metcalfe and Dick Thompson were excellent keepers on Bingley and Burley moors and were both from Middlesmoor in Nidderdale. Already in the 1950s things were beginning to change with the incursion of people on to sections of the moors they had never been before and this was to the detriment of the wildlife and the grouse in particular for where human beings advance, wildlife retreats, except perhaps in the case of vermin.

"The recent bit of a fire on Ilkley Moor seemed a little hyped up for some of us and the comments by self-appointed experts were clearly not right and caused some mirth among proper keepers."

Ken Pickles

Joe Benson, of Addingham, showed me receipts from Hampshire’s Game Dealers, Brook Street, Ilkley, for payment for 20 brace of grouse killed before 7am on August 12, and Joe had only one eye and was an amateur rough shooter. That area of moorland farmed by Alec Thompson on Addingham Moorside has long been cultivated and no grouse have been seen there for 50 years.

It is the same below Rivock at Riddlesden where I found grouse nests below Robin Hood’s Stone a short distance form Jay Tail Wood. It seems incredible now but, of course, their protection and survival was due to another first class gamekeeper, Arthur Scott, of Silsden.

His father was head keeper on St Ives Estate, Bingley. Mr Scott, Snr, shot a honey buzzard – not common even then. This was before the Great War, long before Lady Tweedsmuir’s Protection of Birds Act, 1954. The bird is there for all to see in Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighley, and a fine specimen it is.

The large increase in winged vermin in the 1970s and 1980s further reduced the grouse stocks and those of pewits, curlews, golden plover and redshank. Walter estimated that a single pair of carrion crows could spoil a good moor in a season for they systematically searched for eggs like no other bird. Now there are hundreds in the valley, along with the magpies who also take their toll on the marginal land.

I remember the big fire on Burley Moor in the 1950s when the Army was called in to help control the blaze. It did a lot of damage but the land soon recovered and some wonderful heather regenerated on the burned area.

The recent bit of a fire on Ilkley Moor seemed a little hyped up for some of us and the comments by self-appointed experts were clearly not right and caused some mirth among proper keepers. It is doubtful if a single grouse died in that fire for they are not without some guile. The urge to survive by lagopus lagopus scoticus (red grouse) is very strong indeed.Left to itself, the moor would have recovered nicely on its own terms.

With all moors, whether in Scotland or the north of England, fire is a common occurrence. It is nothing to get excited about for Mother Nature always puts it right.

The problem for poor old Ilkley Moor is that it seems every man and his dog seeks to be managing it. The times we are in, I suppose; something to do with job-creation and the spending of grants or perhaps just people with time on their hands. I sometimes wonder just how much they really know about the moor and its wildlife, its ageless past and far -reaching future!

Take the bracken for instance, a plant which nature has provided to replenish the eroded soil and put humus back in the ground that trees one day will take root in and cover these hillsides as they once did. Some business people advocate spraying as the answer.

For 40 years I have studied the spraying of bracken by helicopters in July and sometimes wonder if this is the reason for the disappearance of the ring-ouzels from local moors for it is at a time when such birds and the cuckoos are feeding on insects and caterpillars on the bracken.

A few years ago I watched three helicopters spraying bracken on Bingley Moor. I was surprised for the conditions were not right on account of the stiff breeze.

Clouds of spray could be seen drifting towards Morton and I wondered how harmful it was and what of those people unsuspectingly breathing it in. Is it worth that risk just to eradicate bracken?

So many of the chemicals once used are now banned internationally. By far the best way is to plant conifers on bracken, especially larch, which most certainly will subdue it naturally.

Of course, I am talking long-term. Once the conifers are harvested, other British trees could be planted. All this would create employment in fencing, etc, and its overall effect would be much nicer than a poisoned piece of sprayed ground.

Any grants awarded would then have been well spent. Besides, the water running off these moors is our drinking water and who wants to spray residue in it? I am told it can drift up to 15 miles.

Oh, I can hear some telling us these sprays are safe. We’ve heard all that before, tell it to the Marines!

The decline of birds species as described should be sending out the danger warnings to all of us for they are some of the first casualties. Anyone inhaling poison spray may not be seriously affected for years, like the caesium legacy from Chernobyl which still haunts our apparently harmless, beautiful heather moors.

The new moorland keepers will have a hard, uphill fight trying to make Ilkley Moor viable as a shooting proposition again but I know for a fact their hard work is paying off and crow numbers have reduced considerably and young grouse are being seen on stretches of heather where they have long been absent.

I wish them well in their endeavours, for with improved grouse and other game stocks come all the other birds that need some protection from a gamekeeper if they are to survive and we, the general public, benefit form the added interest created.

Those people with dogs can help in a big way by keeping them on a lead during nesting time and sometimes non-country people have to be reminded of the inadvertent damage they cause. Some are now running businesses exercising dogs on the moor. They should take the advice from the keepers in good part and consider the wider picture!

Ilkley Moor would be nothing without the guttural call of the grouse, the piping of the redshank or golden plover and that every magical and musical note of the curlew, that symbol of our northern moors.

Good luck to the new game-keepers. May they be enlightened enough to protect the short-eared owls, the merlins, kestrels, hen harriers and peregrine falcons for those beautiful birds will never be numerous.

The popularity of the moors usually means that someone witnesses any criminal act in the destruction of protected birds and, of course, it is that sort of thing that has given gamekeepers and shooting a bad name. Hawks, falcons, and owls do much good by taking rats therefore their usefulness must always be weighed against any bad and the temptation to kill them and break the law must be resisted.

I think those old keepers would agree that it is unlikely that Ilkley Moor could ever be in the same category as its neighbouring private moors unless, of course, the public were fenced out for ten to 15 years as was done with the sheep years ago.

If it were just the interest of the moor we had at heart, that is exactly what we would do, but it isn’t, is it? The moor has become a people’s playground much like a municipal park and they cannot be denied access. Just imagine the fuss if they were excluded!

We must not forget that grouse shooting over butts came in to fashion with the invention of the breech-loading gun in the 1830s. Until then no one had taken grouse seriously as a bird worth eating but at the big hotels in London the wealthy were glad to give it a try.

That fashion is still with us and foreign gentleman with lots of money will pay handsomely for the privilege of bagging a grouse or two but fashions do change.

Thinking of one grouse-shooting prime minister, Sir Harold MacMillan, who shot regularly at Bolton Abbey, I, too, detect a wind of change against the mass slaughter of any game bird driven over guns.

On a lighter note, I recall the much respected gentleman accidentally shooting a kestrel during the excitement of the drive and inviting his police guard to arrest him!

Game shooting is so very British and does satisfy that primitive hunter-gatherer instinct which is more acute in some than others.

The British have it especially, like certain terrier breeds, but the cruelty must be kept to a minimum, also a British trait, being brought up to care about the welfare of dumb animals. After all, it is not long ago that the aristocracy loved to hunt the peasants with dogs and occasionally take the odd pot shot.

It happened at Grimwith not long ago when a certain Lord exercised his right and shot the people in a hot air balloon when it came over the grouse butts during the drive. The offence for many was not that he’d shot someone but that he pleaded not guilty to it!

Around Ilkley Moor the marginal land has been flooded with hand-reared partridges both grey and red-legged. This has been to the deteriment of our native grey partridges. Moor owners, too, have a wider responsibility when introducing these tame, foreign birds. I have seen scores of them lying dead apparently from the diseases they have brought with them or their unsuitability for the terrain. Are they responsible for the demise of our indigenous stock?

Finally, no one can underestimate the value to the countryside of an honest-to-goodness old-fashioned type gamekeeper like the ones mentioned.

They were respected by all; even the poachers. Like the poachers they had also served in wars to protect the countryside they loved and in the main did not kill for the sake of it.

It is to be hoped that those people who are passionately opposed to shooting will not turn our moors into a battle ground over this issue. Everything had its place and there is nothing so pleasing to the eye than a well-keepered grouse moor.

Until fashion changes, let’s put up with it and just simply enjoy what’s there for all despite the differences of opinion.