Like bison, bald eagles, and wild turkeys, grouse are icons of the North American continent, inhabiting nearly every landscape from treeless tundra to boreal forests to steppes and prairies. Twelve grouse species are native to North America. These can be loosely grouped by habitat type into forest grouse, prairie grouse, and tundra grouse. Today’s diary will highlight the forest-dwelling grouse of North America: Ruffed Grouse, Spruce Grouse, Dusky Grouse, and Sooty Grouse. Prairie grouse and tundra grouse (ptarmigans) will be the subjects of future diaries.
Forest grouse are members of the family Phasianidae (pheasants, grouse, and allies). Members of this family are ground-dwellers with feathered nostrils, short, strong bills, and short, rounded wings. In some species, males perform elaborate courtship displays.
The Fab Four that comprise our North American forest grouse are quite secretive and modest in their courtship rituals compared to the hyper-animated displays of their prairie counterparts. Let’s sneak into the forest and do a little grousing….
Ruffed Grouse
“Everyone knows…that the autumn landscape in the north woods is the land, plus a red maple, plus a Ruffed Grouse. In terms of conventional physics, the grouse represents only a millionth of either the mass or the energy of an acre yet subtract the grouse and the whole thing is dead.”
~ Aldo Leopold, 1953
Ruffed Grouse are distributed throughout deciduous and coniferous forests of North America but are most abundant in early-successional forests dominated by aspens and poplars. They are found in 38 of 50 states and in all Canadian Provinces.
Ruffed Grouse are fairly small grouse (1 to 1.5 lbs.) with a short, triangular crest and long, fan-shaped tail. Their plumage is cryptically mottled in shades of gray, brown, buff, and black. They exhibit two color morphs, gray (in northern range) and red (in the south) with the tail showing the most noticeable difference in coloration. With the exception of juveniles, Ruffed Grouse have a prominent dark band near the tip of the tail and a tuft of feathers on the sides of the neck that can be erected into a “ruff.”
Mixed-age groves of aspen, spruce, and birch are preferred habitat for Ruffed Grouse in the northern part of their range. Farther south, they inhabit deciduous forests of oaks, hickories, and pines, while in the Pacific Northwest and Rockies they prefer riparian habitats. Extensive, contiguous and early-successional forests provide food and cover for Ruffed Grouse. These young, productive forests produce the leaves, buds, catkins, acorns, and soft fruits that comprise its diet. Insects are rarely eaten by adults, but provide protein-rich prey for chicks 2 to 4 weeks old.
Here is a video showing winter foraging behavior of a male Ruffed Grouse that has hung around my property in Idaho for a few years. Here he gleans buds from my cherry tree. Ruffed Grouse have no aversion to living in close proximity to humans if the cover gives them adequate security.
Ruffed Grouse are famously known for the drumming sounds produced by territorial males. The drums are a series of progressively faster thumps generated by air rushing to fill the vacuum created under the wings when they are rapidly flapped in front of the body. Males select their “drumming stage”—usually an elevated spot 10-12 inches above the ground, such as a log or rock—based on sufficient height for observing other grouse or large ground predators and sufficient canopy and stem coverage to screen the grouse from aerial predators.
Nests are hollowed-out depressions in the leaf litter, usually at the base of a tree, stump or in a clump of brush. A clutch usually contains 8 to 14 buff colored eggs, which are incubated for 24 to 26 days. Precocial young begin flying at about 5 days old and are fully grown at 17 weeks of age.
Although rated as low conservation concern by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ruffed Grouse are now listed as a species of concern in 18 states. Part of this decline is due to the loss of natural disturbance regimes and early-successional forest habitat over large portions of Ruffed Grouse range. But snowshoe hare population cycles (every 8 to 11 years) are also a factor: high hare populations produce increased predator populations. When snowshoe hare populations eventually crash, predators turn to Ruffed Grouse, making substantial dents in their numbers.
Spruce Grouse
The Spruce Grouse is a beautiful bird that is distributed widely across taiga, boreal, and montane coniferous forests throughout northern portions of North America. Spruce Grouse overlap the northern range of Ruffed Grouse. Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition described the Spruce Grouse as “gentle”, referring to its tame behavior and source of its nickname “fool hen.”
Spruce Grouse are smallish, compact birds, about 16 inches long and weighing just over 1 pound. Sexes are color dimorphic, with males heavily mottled black and dark gray with enlarged scarlet superciliary combs (“eyebrows”) in spring, and females being intricately barred with brown, buff, and white.
Spruce Grouse presently are recognized with two subspecies, the Franklin’s Spruce Grouse of the Rocky Mountains of Montana, Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia, and the Canada Spruce Grouse everywhere else. Both sexes of the Franklin’s subspecies are distinguished by white-tipped upper tail coverts overlying a black tail lacking a clear terminal band.
The Spruce Grouse is a conifer specialist that feeds predominantly on the needles of pine , fir, and spruce through much of the year. They forage fairly high in trees, where their dark plumage blends well in the shadowy recesses of spruce or pines. Spruce Grouse also forage on the ground, eating shoots, flowers, soft fruits, mushrooms, as well as small arthropods and terrestrial snails.
In spring, males perform a flutter-flight courtship display in which they fly up, almost vertically, into a tree branch, making a whirring sound with the wings and adding a wing-clap by striking the wingtips together overhead. Males may also display by fluffing feathers, raising the superciliary combs, dropping wings, bobbing the head, and swishing then fanning the tail feathers.
This stunning video of courting Franklin’s Spruce Grouse shows all of the behaviors described above, including one characteristic of the Franklin’s subspecies I didn’t mention: male Franklin’s do a double-clap vs. the single-clap of the Canada subspecies.
After mating, females lay 4 to 9 spotted-brown eggs in a well-concealed, bowl-like depression at the base of a tree. Eggs are incubated 20-23 days. Females lead chicks through undergrowth, where fungi and insects such as small grasshoppers are important parts of their diet.
This is a pretty cute video of a hen Spruce Grouse brooding ~week-old chicks. It’s worth watching to the end.
The conservation status of Spruce Grouse is secure at present. Partners in Flight estimates the species has more than doubled in number since 1970. But populations tend to fluctuate over time, primarily in response to forest maturation following disturbance. Spruce Grouse need a fire-maintained mosaic of various stages of regeneration; fire suppression can impede this historical pattern.
Dusky Grouse
Dusky Grouse inhabit mountainous regions of interior western North America from central Yukon south to northern Arizona and New Mexico. Formerly considered the interior subspecies of the Blue Grouse, recent DNA evidence supported a split of the Blue Grouse into two species, the Dusky Grouse and the Sooty Grouse.
Duskies are the largest of the coniferous forest grouse of western states and provinces, measuring 17.3 to 22.4 inches in length and weighing ~2.5 pounds. Both sexes are mottled in camouflage patterns of brown, gray, white, and black. Males have dark gray tails and blue-gray underparts. In display, males reveal bare purplish-red air sacs on the neck, and their eye combs swell and become a rich yellow to red. Females are generally drabber in color and smaller.
Duskies breed in the continental shrub-steppe high desert and along the edges of open montane forests of Douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, aspen, and hemlock. Their summer diet takes them out of the forests into surrounding grasslands and shrub-steppe habitats rich with seeds, leaves, flowers, buds, berries, and insects. Dusky Grouse often move to higher-elevation forest in winter, feeding on conifer needles and burying themselves in overnight roosts of deep, soft snow.
Dusky Grouse territorial and courtship displays start early in spring as snow conditions allow. Preference is shown for open stands of trees or shrubs with physical features including earth mounds, rocks, logs, cut banks, and occasionally tree limbs. Males proclaim their territory through a combination of postures, vocalizations, and movements collectively called “hooting.”
Females build ground nests beneath the cover of shrubs, rocks, logs, or grasses. They lay up to 12 eggs which are incubated 25-28 days. Young birds are fully grown by fall and become independent in their first winter.
The Dusky Grouse population appears to be relatively stable and is globally secure, yet it is difficult to gather accurate population estimates for such a remote bird. Duskies may be somewhat threatened by climate change given this species makes seasonal altitudinal migrations. A warming climate could affect how far they have to migrate, which could be a stressor for some populations.
Sooty Grouse
The Sooty Grouse is a large bird of western coastal forests, also occurring in the montane forests of the Sierra Nevada. Sooties occupy a range of breeding habitats from coastal rainforest to subalpine/alpine forest. Virtually all populations overwinter in conifer forest, where conifer needles comprise the main winter food.
Sooties are slightly smaller than Dusky Grouse, measuring 15.8 to 19.7 inches in length and weighing 1.5 to 2.5 pounds. Females are intricately mottled in brown, buff, and white. Males are “sooty” gray-blue with a black tail with a light gray band across the tips, much like the Dusky Grouse. During courtship males reveal orange eyecombs and yellow-orange air sacs on the neck.
Sooty Grouse breeding habitats are open forests, and both old-growth forest with gaps as well as regenerating logged or burned areas with plenty of grasses and shrubs; they tend not to use closed forests, high alpine, or shrub-steppe habitats. They feed on leaves, flowers, buds, berries, conifer needles and insects. Their primary winter diet consists of the buds and needles of Sitka spruce, hemlocks, firs, and pines.
Male Sooties use display perches called “songposts,” which can be more than 100 feet high in a tree. From these songposts, the male performs a short fluttering flight with much wing noise, and gives up to 6 very low-pitched, loud hoots that carry a long distance. Upon spotting a female, the male descends from the songpost to display, strutting with tail raised and fanned and neck feathers spread to reveal patches of bright yellow skin. After mating, the female departs and builds a ground nest under the cover of shrubs, logs, or rocks. Females lay 5 to 10 eggs and incubate 25 to 28 days.
According to the North American Breeding Bird Survey, Sooty Grouse populations declined by about 1.8% per year between 1968 and 2015, resulting in a cumulative loss of 57% over that period. If current rates of decline continue, the species will lose another half of its population by 2088. Reasons for the apparently rapid decline of Sooty Grouse are still largely unknown; however, forest clearing for housing and agriculture development is implicated, particularly in western Washington.
There you have it; your forest grouse tour de force. A bit dense, but hopefully interesting and informative.
The floor is now open for grousing and/or any other birdy topics you desire!