Three miles from the nearest shooting butt, a covey of red grouse springs from the heather, nine birds cackling their alarm call "Go-back, go-back" as they whirr towards the Pennine horizon.
Beyond it, for them, lies an unusual certainty: they will not end up on London dinner plates next Tuesday. For these are birds which live on one of Britain's few grouse moors barred to guns and subject to new, and controversial, "multi-objective" management.
