There’s an inexorable pull into the pinewoods in these spring early mornings. On the loch, the sun-kissed mist is lifting and a male goldeneye displays, tipping its head back as it ripples across the water. Skeins of overwintering geese are still leaving for their breeding grounds farther north, and yet the summer’s chiffchaffs are also calling; I hear the first willow warblers too. Bright green clover-like leaves foretell the sprinklings of wood sorrel soon to come, and a flock of yellow-green and black streaked siskins flash in the sunlight – but I resist the temptation to follow them into the heart of the woods, for other spring rituals are taking place there.
It’s the time of year for early morning capercaillie leks, where the males congregate in hidden clearings in the middle of the woods to display and attract a mate. Capercaillies are huge members of the grouse family, thought to have inhabited old-growth pinewoods like these since the last ice age. In the UK, they’re only found in the pinewoods of Scotland, with the Cairngorms their stronghold. They’re incredible birds. The females are a cryptic brown, the males even bigger, with a red-rimmed eye, black and white with a fan-like tail that they spread during display. Their decline in Scotland has been precipitous, from more than 20,000 in the 1970s to just over 500 now.
They have been locally extinct in Scotland before and were reintroduced in the mid-1800s, but their endangeredness here feels much more existential, especially given the conservation projects that have sought to protect and re-establish them over the years. Their decline is due to a number of factors, including habitat loss, predation and changes in the climate, but people – dog walking, mountain biking and our increasing encroachment in wild places in general – add further stress.
Sometimes it can feel like nature is ours, built around our needs, and we know how good it is for our wellbeing. I also understand my own urge to seek out capercaillies. But this ritual – so vital for their survival and often taking place on the same sites for generations – must continue out of view. So I’m happy to stay away, knowing, or hoping, that somewhere in these woods, capercaillies are lekking and being left alone.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
