Female Sooty Grouse (Dendragapus fuliginosus)
Birds: Sooty Grouse
There are many species of birds that are hard to spot in the wild, for various reasons. Some of the most compelling reasons are family protection. The female Sooty Grouse, for example, is disguised in plain sight, because they lay their eggs on the ground. They are often sited for their natural camouflage and are not spotted until they flush from their nesting areas. These birds are prized for their meat and therefore are often target practice for small game hunters.
One of the most common landscape disguise experts is the Grouse. Along with the Ptarmigan, a medium-sized game bird in the grouse family, they are nearly invisible unless they are headed into a lek, where the males distend their throat and chest balloons with size and color. And they put on a show filled with sound and flourish.
Male Sooty Grouse attending a lek (Dendragapus fuliginosus) [1]
In general, the Sooty Grouse inhabit coniferous forests in mostly mountainous areas (up almost to treeline), although they breed in forests at sea level in the northern part of the range. Most breeding habitats are open forests, and both old-growth forest with gaps as well as regenerating logged or burned areas attract Sooty Grouse, so long as there are plenty of grasses and shrubs. The area around Hurricane Ridge in Olympia National Park are nearly perfect as the grouse tend not to use closed forests, high alpine, or shrubsteppe habitats. Key tree species include lodgepole pine, limber pine, mountain hemlock, western hemlock, Douglas-fir, subalpine fir, white fir, Engelmann spruce, Sitka spruce, and western redcedar, along with other pine species.
There are more than a dozen common grouse species in North America. One group includes the Greater Sage-Grouse, Dusky Grouse, and Greater Prairie-Chicken. The bantam-sized Ruffed Grouse is one of the most familiar, particularly to game hunters.
[1] Formerly part of Blue Grouse species (Dendragapus obscurus), in 2006 the Blue Grouse was split into two species, Dendragapus fuliginosus (Sooty Grouse) and Dendragapus obscurus (Dusky Grouse).
Henry E. Hooper 