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Ruffed Grouse Bonasa umbellus From my porch, I saw something fluttering on a log in the woods. Looking closer, I discovered a chicken-size bird with its crest and neck ruffs raised, fanning its tail and rapidly beating its wings. I felt, more than heard, the low accelerating drumming sound, like the beating of a heart, coming from the wings of the ruffed grouse. I hear the sound daily in spring, but this was the first time I had caught the bird in the act. In early March, the male grouse establishes a territory for courtship displays. When a female hears the drumming, she enters the territory and mating occurs. One male may mate with several females, who then build nests by lining depressions in the ground with leaves, grass, and feathers. One spring, a grouse built a nest in which she laid ten eggs on the edge of our driveway. She and the nest blended so well with the surroundings that we wouldn’t have known she was there if she hadn’t flushed every time we drove past. Incubation is by the female alone and lasts about twenty-three days. The young are precocial; that is, they leave the nest soon after hatching. In contrast, songbirds are altricial ; they hatch featherless and blind and don’t usually fledge for about two weeks. The mother grouse leads her babies to food but they feed themselves, eating mostly insects at first. I have sometimes come upon a mother that whines and plays the broken-wing trick to distract me from her babies, who scurry in all directions. Ruffed grouse are permanent residents across the northern states and Canada in deciduous or mixed woods, where they forage on the ground, in shrubs, and in trees for buds, leaves, flowers, seeds, fruit, and a few insects. In winter, they spend most of their time foraging high in trees or roosting under the snow. Walking on the snow is facilitated by a fringe of scales that forms along each toe and enlarges the surface area of the foot. Lanesboro naturalist Johan Hvoslef often worried that young hunters in the vicinity would extirpate the species from the region. On September 14, 1913, he wrote, “A Bonasa in the valley, and below the fence in the Deep Valley I met with—flushed—the whole brood (covey) again. It was a grand treat: I had been afraid the whole flock had been illegally murdered!” Although they are still hunted, the birds remain common throughout their normal range, with populations fluctuating in regular cycles. According to Gary Nelson , Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Manager, ruffed grouse are presently in a low cycle in most of the state. However, in southeast Minnesota, where populations generally do not fluctuate, numbers have declined due to our maturing forests and shortage of second-growth woods that the birds prefer. 3 ...

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