Scientific name: Tetrao tetrix Linnaeus, 1758
Bird group: Game birds
Field characters. 40-55 cm. Male is unmistakable, with glossy black plumage, lyre-shaped tail, and conspicuous white undertail and wing-bar. Female is warm brown, freckled and barred black, with distinct whitish wing-bar and forked tail; it is larger and less ruddy than Red Grouse, smaller and less richly and strongly barred than Capercaillie. Both sexes with red, bare patch above eyes. Male in eclipse plumage is dirty brown, mottled dark above; throat white. Juvenile like female but smaller.
Voice. Call of male during communal display at the lek is a sneezing "to-wha" or "whushee"; song is a musical, bubbling, dove-like phrase. The hen produces a loud "tchuk-tchuk".
Distribution. Continuing decline in many areas but locally still fairly common.
Habitat. A grouse that haunts fringes of moorland, grassland, woodland, steppe, bogs, where scattered groups of trees are present.
Food. Feeds mainly on plant material, such as catkins of birches, buds and needles of Scots pine, stems and berries of bilberry, heather, and grasses.