Close encounter with a grouse of the red kind

Blanchland Moor, Northumberland Strutting and posturing, the grouse makes it clear that this is his territoryOn shallow puddles, delicate fans of ice dissolve under the morning sun as we follow the sandy track over Blanchland Moor. These heather uplands, now every tone of brown from straw to sepia, fill the eye with purple every August.
Stopping on a south-facing bank, we share a flask of tea, a stand of thorn trees at our backs for shelter. Nearby is the outlying farmstead of Pennypie House. Th