Where do grouse go in rainy weather

bearhunter said:
Grouse are inherintly not overly bright creatures.

Rainy springs will come very close to wiping out the chicks because they don't have enough sense to take cover, except under the wings of the female, which will often lead to the demise of the female, if she isn't already under cover.

Adult grouse will seek cover from rain/cold and usually survive to produce another batch of eggs. If it's to cold, those eggs won't hatch.

Our area had a very wet/cold spring this year. Grouse populations are way down and I'm still seeing chicks that are only a few weeks old. Same goes for Quail.

The local Quail population that circulates through my yard was down to 5 birds, from a usual 75-100. Yesterday I counted over 40 birds, with at least 30+ chicks around two weeks old.

Hopefully the winter isn't to inclement and the survival rate is good.

Because of the cold/wet spring, many of the wild fruit shrubs and trees, such as huckleberries/choke cherries/saskatoon berries lost all their fruit. The wild animals and birds that depend on that fruit to put on weight to weather the cold are desperate for a replacement food and are resorting to thorn berries, which are mostly just hard seeds that don't digest.
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just came back from a week long moose camp in the area, didnt see too many birds and what you say makes sense, plus a bunch of coyotes seem to be happy at home there, im thinking about cutting down their population a bit to give other animals better chance at surviving winter
 
bearhunter said:
Grouse are inherintly not overly bright creatures.
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That about sums it up here - most common to see here is ruffed grouse, although some sharp tails spotted in later winter out in grain fields. I think two out of their four brain cells are clued in that rose hips are good to eat. So "high bush cranberries" must look similar - once snow falls, not unusual to see a "ruffie" in the spruce trees by the house - it walks out on a spruce branch - must be thinking to step across to cranberry bush branch - which yields to their weight, and results in their ungainly tumble into snow below - then get a partner involved - so now get to watch two of them - each using 50% of their brain power - so get both still ending up nose first in the snow below.
 
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bearhunter said:
Grouse are inherintly not overly bright creatures.
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I seem to come across 2 types of grouse: ones like you describe that enjoy casually walking or sitting just off the trail as I move about and ones that seem to have a sixth sense and bust 60 yards ahead of me...the former almost always when I'm carrying the 30/30, the latter when I'm carrying the shotgun :)
 
It seems there are many kinds of grouse and not every locale calls them by the same name - in Saskatchewan, we had "prairie chickens" - sharp tail grouse - but than Dakotas have a larger bird - Sage Grouse(?) that they call "prairie chicken" - then just read on Wikipedia is / was a "pinnated grouse", also known as a "greater prairie chicken". In this area, it seems Ruffed Grouse are often called "bush partridge" - even though I have seen small coveys of Hungarian Partridge here. And, I do recall from larger bush in North Sask - was a similar bird we called a "spruce hen" - but not really sure what it's real name is - dumber than most fence posts, for sure. I have also read that mountain areas have different ones - is apprently "Blue Grouse" and so on - if I ever saw them, I did not know what I was looking at. I grew up thinking there was Ruffed Grouse and Sharptail Grouse - likely correct for where I was - but not even a good start at the various kinds - no doubt all well adapted to where they live. I am sure what a Sharptail on Prairies does when it rains, is different than what a "spruce hen" in heavy spruce bush does, which might be different to what a Ruffed Grouse does, and so on ...
 
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