| Right Before Your Eyes - Staying On Top
Grouse are members of the family Tetraonidae (te-ra-ON-ih-dee), ranging from chicken-size to turkey-size. There are 18 species worldwide, mostly in the northern hemisphere. North American members include 5 species called grouse, 3 called ptarmigans (TAR-mih-gans) and 2 called prairie chickens. To further confuse the issue, many people refer to grouse as partridges or pheasants.
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Most members of the grouse family live in cold climates and grow "snowshoes" in the fall and early winter. While the ptarmigans grow a dense mat of stiff feathers on their toes, most of the other grouse grow numerous 2-3mm projections along each toe., like the teeth on a comb, called pectinations.
The Ruffed Grouse is probably the best known of our grouse and ranges from Alaska to Newfoundland and as far south as Georgia. Males are known for their courtship displays on forest logs each spring as they attract females and intimidate other males. During courtship, male Ruffed Grouse beat their wings, producing a low drumming sound that carries great distances through the woods. The drumming has often been described as sounding like a distant tractor starting up, with slow wing beats that speed up toward the end of each roughly 5-second series. Actually, the sound is so low and soft that you may not be sure whether you're hearing or feeling the drumming; if you haven't had the sound pointed out to you, you may have heard it before and never even realized it! Still, that subtle, low-pitched sound has an advantage: low frequencies travel much farther than do high frequency sounds.
Prairie chickens are particularly well known for their social gatherings and courtship displays. The males gather on traditional display sites called leks and attract females by dancing and "booming" a deep, hollow sound. Both the Greater and Lesser Prairie Chickens have been greatly reduced in numbers as their grassland habitat has been converted to agriculture. The Heath Hen of eastern North America, a subspecies of Greater Prairie Chicken, became extinct in the 1930's because of habitat destruction.
Although grouse usually travel on the ground, their flight is strong and rapid when necessary. Any grouse hunter can tell you about their explosive, powerful takeoffs. It is a power they cannot sustain for very long, but it's enough to startle most predators long enough for them to make a hasty escape.
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Burton, M. & Burton, R. 1970. The international Wildlife Encyclopedia. M. Cavendish Corp, NY. Terres, J. 1980. Audobon society Encyclopedia of North American Birds. A. Knopf, NY.
1991 John Wiessinger Box 453 Etna, NY 1362
