Capercaillie Lek Count Report 2025

Caper­cail­lie Lek Count Report 2025

Back­ground

Lek counts are a tool used to mon­it­or caper­cail­lie num­bers in Scot­land and have been car­ried out con­sist­ently across the caper­cail­lie range since 2002. This involves licensed sur­vey­ors, coordin­ated by the RSPB Caper­cail­lie Advis­ory Officer, count­ing the num­ber of male caper­cail­lie (cocks) attend­ing known lek sites where the birds gath­er to breed.

As caper­cail­lie are a leg­ally pro­tec­ted spe­cies under the Wild­life and Coun­tryside Act (1981), lek sur­veys are com­pleted under a Sched­ule 1 license from NatureScot. Sur­vey­ors are trained and fol­low a strict pro­tocol to gath­er accur­ate data and reduce the risk of disturbance.

Lek loc­a­tions can move, so caper­cail­lie forests are often ​‘cold searched’, which involves sur­vey­ors check­ing poten­tial lek sites for signs of caper­cail­lie dur­ing a day­time walk-through, to identi­fy hot­spots of activ­ity. These are fol­lowed up by early morn­ing lek counts (from 4am), which take place from mid-April to early May, and primar­ily involve sur­vey­ors count­ing lekking cocks seen from hides, which they enter and sleep in the night before, to reduce dis­turb­ance. The num­ber of vis­its to a lek are lim­ited to reduce poten­tial dis­turb­ance and leks are gen­er­ally only sur­veyed once a year.

The res­ults from lek sur­veys provide an insight into pop­u­la­tion trends and inform loc­al man­age­ment for caper­cail­lie. The counts are not inten­ded to provide an over­all pop­u­la­tion estim­ate for caper­cail­lie as the birds do not attend leks every morn­ing. This means some birds will be missed so the counts are only a par­tial dataset.

The nation­al sur­vey, which has been repeated every 6 years since the early 1990s and sur­veys caper­cail­lie across their range, is used to inform pop­u­la­tions estim­ates. Res­ults from the most recent caper­cail­lie nation­al sur­vey can be found through this link: Fur­ther declines of the West­ern Caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus in Scot­land as shown by the 2021 – 2022 winter survey.

Data from 2020 is not included in lek count reports as most leks were not coun­ted due to Cov­id restrictions.

Key points from lek counts in 2025

• A total of 143 lekking males were recorded.
• This is a decrease of 10 lekking males com­pared to 2024 and the low­est num­ber of lekking males recor­ded in 20 years of counts.
• There was a decline in lekking males recor­ded in Strath­spey and Deeside.
• There was no evid­ence of caper­cail­lie in Perthshire.
• 1 lekking cock was recor­ded in Moray/​Nairn.
• The lek sur­vey effort remained con­sist­ent, how­ever cold search­ing effort increased in some areas.
• The con­di­tions for count­ing were good, low wind and dry.
• Due to the early and dry spring weath­er, there was plenty of lekking activ­ity from the begin­ning of April and the peak of activ­ity was around 18^th April. This was earli­er than usual.
• The three largest lek sites where 14, 12 and 11 lekking males were coun­ted, are all in areas away from well used tracks and over 3km from res­id­en­tial areas.
• Four lekking males in Strath­spey were dis­play­ing on well used paths and a new breed­ing site was formed by one of the birds. Tem­por­ary signs developed by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and NatureScot were deployed to safe­guard the site from dis­turb­ance. The move was made as part of the wider Lek It Be cam­paign which aims to ensure caper­cail­lie are not dis­turbed dur­ing the lekking season.
• Drop­pings were col­lec­ted from two lek sites in pre­par­a­tion for extend­ing a pilot genet­ic lek sur­vey as set out in the Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan.

Con­clu­sions

The decrease in total lekking males recor­ded in Scot­land in 2025 is extremely con­cern­ing. Although, as noted, lek counts are only a par­tial data­set, the decline in lekking males recor­ded fol­lows a gen­er­al trend of find­ing few­er signs of caper­cail­lie and over a decreas­ing geo­graph­ic­al range.

The peri­phery pop­u­la­tions remain in an increas­ingly per­il­ous pos­i­tion, with no signs of caper­cail­lie in Perth­shire and only one cock bird recor­ded in Moray­shire. The loss of caper­cail­lie in Moray­shire would res­ult in a fur­ther range con­trac­tion, increas­ing the vul­ner­ab­il­ity of the bird. Des­pite the decline in lekking males recor­ded in Strath­spey, the area remains the strong­hold for capercaillie.

[Image of a line graph titled ​“Min­im­um num­ber of males recor­ded at lek counts across Scot­land between 2004 – 2025”] [Image of a bar graph titled ​“Min­im­um num­ber of males recor­ded at leks in Scot­land 2004 – 2025”]

The RSPB Caper­cail­lie Advis­ory Officer wishes to thank all the lek coun­ters, the Park Author­ity, FLS, RSPB and private estate staff and volun­teers for their assist­ance under­tak­ing lek counts and provid­ing the data for this report.