“They like thick cover.” “Edge habitat.” “Undergrowth.” “Clover and berries”. “Young aspens”. “Cut blocks.” Advice on where ruffed grouse live is not hard to find. “Shoot them with a twenty-two on quad trails!”, and the best one: “They come wandering into my backyard when I’m outside barbecuing. I go inside, grab a gun, shoot them, and add them to the grill”. Hardly a bird worthy of the title “King”. Or is he?
Finn’s bell tingled somewhere behind me, as I was pushing through a dense forest of young pines. They had grown so thick that the lower branches had died, letting through enough light for an understory of leafy shrubs, and even a low-to-the-ground plant with red berries.Kinnikinnik, I think. Bears like them, as demonstrated by a few piles of scat that were full of them. Why do bears even eat berries? It appears most of them pass through their system untouched. I hoped grouse liked them too.
My musings on the inner workings of a bear were rudely interrupted by a rustle and the drumming of wings! A grey ruffed grouse exploded from under my feet, and was out of sight in a second. Finn drew up behind me, and solidly pointed the spot the grouse had just left. We had found grouse! The dog needed no more encouragement, and dashed off looking for more encounters. I dashed off looking for a place to breathe. Grouse might live here, but short of clubbing them to death, there was no way I was going to get my hands on one. The thickets were claustrophobic to a man of the mountains and prairies.
By following the flushing birds we managed to push some into terrain where a gun could be shouldered unimpeded, more or less, and we managed to shoot two. Finn found a lot more of them, and I even saw some that he found, but mostly I heard an excited bark, the wings through the vegetation, and then Finn’s bell as he was off again.
Hunting these these birds is not an easy task, if you don’t want to “shoot them from the quad with a twenty-two”, something that would be severely hampered by the fact that I don’t own a quad, nor do I like being on one much. We never found them in open cover where a guy (or girl) would have a decent chance to get off a shot, and where we did find them, we couldn’t move. Ruffed grouse, The King of Upland Birds? Definitely the King of Hide and Seek.
F.