This is a female grouse commonly found in our area. The male has a bright red spot on the top of his head. These birds have a survival strategy that depends on camouflage. They will “freeze” when they see you and hope you don’t see them. They are easy to approach if you do it slowly. They run only after you get to within a couple feet. This strategy has earned them the reputation of being “dumb” but I don’t think it is deserved. 

     One morning while in my tent, the rising sun was brightly shining onto the side of the tent under the rain tarp. I had awakened to the soft chirping of some birds close by and noticed that the sun was casting a shadow on my tent of three small grouse chicks sitting in a row on a limb. Their image was so crisp (because they were so close) that I could see their beaks move in synchronization with the chirping. I lay there enjoying these three chatter away and in my mind I named them Huey, Dewey and Louie. (more…)

     If you do see chicks about, you know that the mom is close by, frequently making soft chirps in grouse language to signal the chicks what to do.   I once notices a spherical depression in front of my tent and noted that I didn’t remember seeing it before. Later that day there was a female grouse snuggled in the depression, pecking away at the ground where a log had decayed, leaving only a reddish color on the ground. Obviously, it was a good spot to hunt bugs. The next day there were three smaller depressions next to the original large one where the chicks must have learned how to get a meal.