What happened before the click...Photographers tell their story behind a special picture. This time: the courtship of two black grouse
While spring is slowly awakening in the lowlands, it is often still deep winter in the mountains. This is the time to see a breathtaking spectacle: the mating display of the black grouse. The males of the species, known as blackcocks, gather together in special mating display grounds called leks, where they compete for the favours of the females. Their courtship rituals reach their climax in April, as the snow is melting, and the bright colours of the first crocuses stand out against the winter white.
I have been observing this impressive spectacle for the past three years and each time I’m overcome once again, as I was on this particular morning. It was well worth persevering through the icy temperatures of the early hours of the morning. Still completely dark with temperatures as low as minus 12 degrees, I lay under my camouflage netting surrounded by the backdrop of the wintry mountains. Shortly before dawn, I felt a gust of wind pass over me and the next moment there were 10 to 15 blackcocks standing on the lek. The mating display was about to start.
That morning, I had the great good fortune on several occasions to have two particularly impressive displaying blackcocks in my camera sights. However, it took several attempts before I was able to capture them both leaping into action parallel to the camera. A moment that made me forget all the trials and tribulations and the cold, and showed off the wonder of the black grouse mating display in all its glory.
Nicole Watkins’ enthusiasm for nature began at an early age. Watkins, who was born in 2002 in Switzerland, got her first camera aged 16 and on a trip across Namibia she was introduced to wildlife photography. Her passion for photography finally took hold in April 2019, when birds were being covered in her biology studies, and she spotted a hoopoe in her Swiss garden. In her choice of subjects to photograph, the biology student has been particularly drawn to the world of the Swiss mountains. A selection of her pictures can be viewed at www.nicole-watkins.ch.