The Lammermuir Black Grouse Group is following on the heels of the successful grey partridge groups set up by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust.

The group was launched in Longformacus last week when the trust’s regional advisor, Hugo Straker, spoke on what the black grouse needed to survive on the moorland fringe.

The move has been prompted by a dramatic drop in the game bird’s numbers, and its appearance on a range of organisations’ ‘at risk’ registers, including the government’s biodiversity action plan.

Mr Straker said: “The aim of the Lammermuir Black Grouse Group is to arrest the bird’s decline in the area and to target resources to increase the breeding productivity of the existing population.

“Additionally, the creation and management of suitable habitat, in tandem with predator control, should encourage range expansion.”

He will be putting forward management programmes from the trust tailored to individual farms to try to boost numbers and halt further losses.

Black grouse have declined due to the effects of intensive livestock grazing prior to a change in European faming policy; farmers are no longer paid according to livestock numbers, and stewardship schemes now pay farmers to carry out conservation.

“The decline has been very steep,” Mr Straker continued, but added that work and investment in moorland over the last decade or so for red grouse will help black grouse too. There is also now more control of predators such as crows, foxes and stoats.

RSPB and Scottish Borders Council staff were at the launch along with gamekeepers, landowners, farmers and land managers.

Mr Straker called on everyone to count blackcock and greyhen on all known lek (natural mating ‘arena’) sites, as well as recording sightings of individual birds.

“The group is a good mix of conservationists, game keepers, land owners and managers. We want the land managers to count the birds so we are able to monitor the success of management actions being employed. Collectively we can succeed by adopting a combined landscape approach to management.”

About three quarters of the distinctive bird’s population is found in Scotland.

The group is being sponsored by The Organic Spirits Company.