TOP guns from around the globe will gather on Northern moors next week for what promises to be the best grouse shooting season for a decade.

The National Gamekeepers Association, with 4,246 members nationwide, reports that numbers of the red grouse have improved considerably on estates in County Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria.

And they have attracted grouse shooters from around the world, including Europe, the US, South America and the Far East.

Lyndsay Waddell, the association's chairman and a head keeper in Upper Teesdale, County Durham, said: "Only North Yorkshire has taken a bit of a hit.

"That is because broods of chicks came during the severe wet weather we have experienced this summer and could not survive."

He said that generally throughout the region, numbers of birds were good, and birds were a better size than they have been for years.

"We have seen a very considerable improvement in the red grouse population," he said.

That is in stark contrast to 1998, when a tiny parasite worm decimated the birds in the North Pennines.

But through careful estate management, the parasite has largely been wiped out.

Mr Waddell said it was a sign of how good the numbers were this season that for the first time in his 30 years as a gamekeeper, he has not had to wait for at least two years for young birds to mature.

As the Glorious Twelfth, the start of the grouse shooting season, is tomorrow, most shoots will traditionally delay their start until Monday.

The number of overseas sportsmen taking part in shoots is also on the rise.

Mr Waddell said: "Traditionally most of them have come from Europe and North America, but we have bookings this season from South America and, for the first time, from the Far East."

It has led to benefits for hotels and restaurants in the area, with many establishments reporting bookings well up on previous years.

The only bleak note on the shooting scene is what seems a total wipeout of the partridge population on Northern moors.

David Baines, a research director with the Game Conservancy Trust in Upper Teesdale, said not one chick had been seen this summer because of the torrential rains.

He said: "We believe the chicks have become stunted because they have not been able to feed in the wet heather and have simply wandered off and died."

The game bird had been making a comeback in areas such as the North Pennines in recent years.