HOW WE TWO COMBINED to study grouse was a matter of chance. When aged 13, AW saw his first ptarmigan on a lone climb to Derry Cairngorm in 1943 and began to record numbers, and in the winter of 1951/2 studied them there for an honours degree at Aberdeen University. With a Carnegie Arctic Scholarship at McGill University he studied museum specimens, willow ptarmigan in Newfoundland and rock ptarmigan in Baffin Island. Returning to Aberdeen, he renewed work on Derry Cairngorm for a PhD. In 1957 he moved to Glen Esk and in 1961 to Banchory for research on red grouse, and he continued work on ptarmigan. He has studied black grouse, capercaillie and Irish red grouse, and accompanied ecologists on their fieldwork in Iceland, Norway and Alaska.
At New Year 1963, we each attended a conference in the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at Oxford. RM, who had graduated in honours biochemistry at University College London, gave a talk on fulmars of the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen, which he had visited on a student expedition. He showed keen interest in chemical aspects of the work on red grouse, and in spring 1963 came north for a study of the nutrition of red grouse for a PhD. In Scotland he has continued work on red grouse, and also on ptarmigan, black grouse and capercaillie. Abroad, he studied Icelandic ptarmigan, and rock, willow and white-tailed ptarmigan during a year based at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. More recently, he has accompanied Russian biologists in their fieldwork on capercaillie.
While writing this book, we shared a room as Emeritus Fellows of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Banchory. As ever, we like arguing about grouse and studying them.
Adam Watson, Clachnaben, Crathes, and Robert Moss, Station House, Crathes, December 2006