Feather in your bonnet

[Jock Scot]

I hope that I am not going to cause too much upset here with contravening some rule or other, but out of interest, Singlemalt has raised an interesting point and I think is relevant to blackcock feathers not being worn as often with kilt attire than perhaps once was.

He is right, if and when a black grouse ended up in the "bag" not only were they eaten , but indeed the whole tail was cut off still attached to a piece of skin, to keep the feathers in proper order, and either kept as a trophy, or sold for the kilt attire market. Sadly these days the black grouse are not as common as they once were-------funnily enough shooting is not the main reason--------for a variety of reasons, loss of habitat, increase of vermin etc., and I am glad to say the decline has been halted and in most places are increasing in numbers. Make no mistake though they were never that common, rare no, scarce no and I am happy to report that in my bit of the highlands we have a healthy stock of black grouse. I understand that these days, most of the black grouse tails used in the kilt attire trade come from Scandinavia.