Capercaillie
The capercaillie is a forest bird that belongs to the grouse family. In folklore, it was believed that the forest spirit could take the form of a capercaillie or a black grouse. Such a magical capercaillie could never be shot.
”During short forest walks in the autumn, I shot a few capercaillies. I usually went on capercaillie hunts accompanied by my Lappish dog Brunette. If they only saw the dog, their flight was not long, and since Brunette had the sharp eye of an eagle and legs like an antelope, she was always immediately under the tree where the bird had landed.” Llewellyn Lloyd
In western Sweden, the great hunter Llewellyn Lloyd hunted in the 19th century. The presence of capercaillie was abundant in Sweden during the early 1800s, and they were hunted with traps as well as by sitting and driving hunters or with dogs. On the British Isles, however, hunting had led to their extinction. In the 1850s, Lloyd carried out successful reintroductions by bringing capercaillies from Ronnum to the Scottish estate Taymouth Castle. The birds multiplied, and today’s Scottish capercaillie population originates from the capercaillies Lloyd introduced.
