A NORTH Yorkshire moorland estate has bucked the trend with a surplus of grouse for today's Glorious Twelfth.

Des Coates, head gamekeeper on Lord Peel's Grinton Estate, in Swaledale, says they have a near- record number this year.

He said: "We could be looking at 2,000 brace, and possibly more, probably because it is a very dry moor."

Many other estates are struggling to have only one or two days shooting, but Grinton has pencilled in 20 days.

Good news for the estate, it should also boost the local economy.

Estates keep their charges a closely guarded secret but, typically, a team of eight guns could expect to pay £10,000 to shoot 100 brace.

The income is vital for estates such as Grinton, which ploughs much of it back into maintaining buildings, improving the habitat and carrying out other conservation work on its 6,000 acres.

Mr Coates has been a gamekeeper for 34 years - 27 of them at Grinton - and is full of praise for Lord Peel, who he says spends a fortune on conservation.

He said: "He has spent £96,000 over ten years on bracken control alone. It has regenerated 300 acres of heather and he has started another five-year scheme."

Mild, moist winters are ideal conditions for a parasitic worm, which devastates grouse chicks and which has hit other estates hard.

But Grinton has suffered its worst drought since 1949.

The dry conditions have hit worm numbers and Mr Coates has also reduced their threat by creating 50 small ponds across the moor, so grouse, and other birds such as golden plover, lapwing and curlew, are not concentrated in just a few places.

While there is no shortage of grouse on Grinton, the estate has struggled to find beaters.

A local shortage of interested young people has meant they have had to recruit from Richmond and Barnard Castle, ten to 15 miles away.

Mr Coates said it was a sign of the times: "We have eight coming from Richmond and five from Barnard Castle. I doubt if we have ten from the local area."

The Game Conservancy Trust has carried out trials which show estates which employ gamekeepers have a richer variety of bird life because of their predator control and general management.