Capercaillie Life Project - Urgent Scottish Management for Scottish Capercaillie

The Project

Examples of Work

The Capercaillie LIFE Project carried out a wide range of work. Essentially this can be broken down into four main areas;

- Habitat enhancement and expansion

- Planning and co-ordination of those who are involved

- Monitoring and studying responses to habitat management works

- Promotion and dissemination

Habitat enhancement and expansion

Removing deer fences or reducing the risk of collisions
	Deer fences, particularly inside forests, can present a significant risk to Capercaillie. The fences are difficult for the birds to spot and they are at a height where Capercaillie can strike them as they fly through under the canopy of the trees.
Where possible deer fences are removed, in some cases this is not possible so the fences are marked to make them more visible to Capercaillie.
Managing grazing within Capercaillie woodlands
	Overgrazing in woodlands can prevent young trees from regenerating and can dramatically reduce the availability of the types of plants that Capercaillie use for cover and for food. Where this was identified as being a problem work has been carried out to make sure that stock fences surrounding the woodlands are kept in good repair to stop sheep and other domestic animals getting into the forest. In other places the woodland floor has become dominated with rank heather, here grazing animals can be used to try and break up the existing ground vegetation and let other plants, like blaeberry, get a chance to grow. This is done by controlling the areas that the animals move about in and the project is also carrying out some monitoring to study how successful this type of work can be.
Creating Capercaillie brood habitat within dense forests
As forest plantations develop they close up and can become too dense to develop the types of ground vegetation that provides good habitat for Capercaillie hen to raise her chicks. To address this the project funded work to open up these plantations by creating a patchwork of glades and carrying out variable density thinning operations. This type of work is aimed at continuing to provide cover and protection for the Capercaillie whilst allowing just the right amount of light to reach the forest floor to allow blaeberry plants to thrive.
		The forests that tend to be best suited to Capercaillie mostly made up of native conifer trees, mainly Scots Pine. Different types of tree have different values for shelter and protection and a mix of species can provide good habitat, but where there are too many non-native conifers, like Western Hemlock or Sitka Spruce, the plants that the Capercaillie need find it difficult to survive. Where the number of exotic non-native species is too high work is carried out to remove them in favour of native species.
Enhancing Capercaillie Brood Habitat
It is important to manage the ground vegetation to try and get a good mix of vegetation types. A good supply of food for chicks, primarily from the blaeberry plants and the insects that they support, and enough cover for the chicks to shelter from the weather and to hide from predators. In some cases the amount of rank heather can be a problem because it out competes blaeberry plants, thus reducing the amount of available food, and can dramatically reduce the ability of chicks to move around the forest. To try and improve conditions we are carrying out heather swiping and controlled burning to improve areas of rank heather and to encourage the growth of blaeberry.

As well as blaeberry, plants and invertebrates found in boggy areas are important, such as cotton grass which provides nutrients that help hens develop strong eggs.
		Where forestry and other past management actions have resulted in boggy areas drying up, ditches and drains can be blocked to help recreate areas of woodland bogs.