Our most exotic bird

The Black Grouse (Merlin Unwin, £20) is Patrick Lurie’s first book and the first ever on the the subject. Lurie is a freelance journalist but his mission is to save tetrao tetrix britannicus (the britannicus added in 1913). He devotes much of his time protecting a black cock and a couple of  its grey hens on 1,600 upland acres in Galloway; and has written a diary combined with a history of the species, touching on the evolution of landscape and shooting, as well as conservation politics. Sterile tree farms (forest too good a word) now carpet a quarter of once nature-rich Dumfries and Galloway.

The black cock with its lyre-shaped tale, which decorates (in replicated form) the pipers’ bonnets of  the amalgamated Scottish regiments, must vie for the distinction of being our most exotic bird. Up to 1939 they could still be found on Wimbledon Common but today the main population is confined to the Highlands, the bird having declined 95 per cent overall during the last 100 years.