“Yon Capercaillie’s totally lost the heid.”

Translate:

heid: head.

“That Capercaillie there has totally lost any sense it had in its fit of fury.”

Climb: apologies to all for it being a drawing I did so long ago but it fits.

The Scottish Word: heid with its definition and its meaning illustrated and captioned with the word used in context in the Scots language and in English.

Capercaillie.

All capercaillie in Scotland are from Swedish stock, as the species became extinct in Scotland in 1785. The population has halved in recent years. The most serious threats to the species are habitat degradation, particularly conversion of diverse native forest into often single-species timber plantations, and to birds colliding with fences erected to keep deer out of young plantations.

The Gaelic name for this species, capall-coille, means ‘horse of the forest’. And they will chase you in the breeding season.

(This is a Scotstober 2024 Word.)

All of the Scotstober words illustrated for week three are available to scroll through on a single page here.