Grouse do odd things. But this one was especially weird
We were fishing way up Oriskany Creek last month, working hard to fool some trout, when I noticed some motion in the brush on the bank off to my left.
I took a look and there was a ruffed grouse, maybe 5 yards away. It didn’t seem to be feeding. It just ambled here and there. I thought maybe it just wasn’t aware of me, but I don’t know how that could be. It just kept slowly making its way along the creek, kind of ignoring me but paying attention at the same time.
I waded upstream a bit, and the grouse followed. I thought that was just happenstance, but when I got up out of the water and walked through the woods, she — I think it was a she — kept coming following. I got back into the water to fish a spot, and the grouse still hung around, walking back and forth and keeping an eye on me.
Grouse are known for being eccentric, but I thought this one was especially weird.
“What are you doing, bird?” I said.
I did not expect an answer, and I didn’t get one, but every time I moved, the bird came along. I climbed over blowdowns, and she’d go under them. I cut through short stretches of high grass, and she’d pick her way through the nearby brush, and then catch up to me. At times she was within a couple of feet.
I didn’t shoo her away, but I did talk loudly to her. She didn’t seem to mind. This went on for 45 minutes or so and maybe several hundred yards of creek. I finally decided to head back downstream, and cut through a small meadow. She didn’t follow immediately, but when I got halfway across, she got up and flew straight as an arrow into the woods on the other side.
I thought she was gone then, but when I got into another patch of woods, she reappeared, walking along with not a care in the world. Finally, I came to a large open field, and she hung up in the woods.
“Come on, bird! Come on!”
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She wouldn’t come. I thought about that for minute, and figured that grouse don’t like wide open spaces because they would be exposed to hawks or other predators a little more than they’d like. The bird wasn’t going to risk her life for my companionship.
I found the experience amusing and rather nice. And I learned later that this bird — or at least, possibly this bird — was familiar to others who frequent that area. I was told that she even occasionally landed on their ATVs.
Again, grouse are weird, but they are very cool birds. If you’ve never seen one, you might well have heard one. The males “drum” during the spring as part of their mating ritual. It sounds like a small gasoline engine starting up, and when I first heard one about a thousand years ago, that’s exactly what I thought it was.
We used to spend some time every winter hunting grouse at our camp in Steuben County, but mostly as incidentals while rabbit hunting. We usually did well on the rabbits, and we’d flush enough birds to make it fun, but hitting them was not easy, especially if they went up near pines or hemlocks. Every now and then we’d have enough for a meal. A small meal.
If you ever want a real treat, try chasing cottontails all morning and half the afternoon while walking side hills, climbing over and crawling under barbed wire, getting scratched up by rose and raspberry bushes, slapped in the face with branches, ruining your back by hunching over while busting through the undergrowth, and exhausting yourself enough to need a two-hour nap afterward. We loved it.
Grouse, also known as partridge, can be brownish or gray or sometimes reddish, which hides them well in their preferred environments. They run a lot, which is a problem, since you don’t ’want to shoot them on the ground. They don’t usually fly very far when flushed, so you often get a second chance if you miss.
And, again, they do odd and surprising things, like burying themselves in snow to insulate themselves from the cold. I had this demonstrated to me dramatically on a long ago winter hike in the New Hartford Town Park. I had stopped for a breather when the snow next to my left foot suddenly blew open and a grouse exploded into the sky. I almost had a heart attack.
Grouse love new growth forests, and especially relate to pioneering trees like aspens, which provide the buds and leaves they like to feed on. Populations in some parts of New York are down considerably in the last 50 years and by 75 percent overall because so much forest has grown up and matured. Our property was logged many times and farmed into the1950s, so we had a lot of new growth and a lot of grouse for quite a while. That has changed, but there still are some birds around.
The Department of Environmental Conservation has a Young Forest Initiative that aims to increase habitat for grouse, woodcock, and other wildlife by cutting relatively small patches and strips into woods.
You can learn about that program on the DEC web site at dec.ny.gov/outdoor/104218.html and more about ruffed grouse in general at dec.ny.gov/animals/45436.html.
Write to John Pitarresi at 60 Pearl Street, New Hartford, N.Y. 13413 or jcpitarresi41@gmail.com or call him at 315-724-5266.
Notebook
Dave Corr’s passing a huge loss for the outdoor community
Dave Corr was a community-minded guy who got things done.
His recent passing leaves a very large hole in the local outdoor world, but he also was a force in the area in general terms, and especially in support of law enforcement personnel in our area. The list of his volunteer activities is long and impressive — New Hartford Fire Department; the Officer Joseph D. Corr Foundation, which honors his son, who was killed in the line of duty; long service on the New York State Fish & Wildlife Management Board and the Conservation Fund Advisory Board, the Mohawk Valley Water Board, and much else.
He inaugurated Trout Unlimited’s Trout in the Classroom program locally, spearheaded fishing access and stream improvement projects, helped coordinate stream cleanups, and led or participated in many other initiatives. He was honored for his work on many occasions, including induction into the New York State Outdoorsmen Hall of Fame.
Dave was a can-do, affable man, but he also was not shy about speaking his mind, and once it was made up, you weren’t going to move him very far, if at all. That probably is why he got so much done.
Ken Ziobro, Dave’s longtime friend and fellow Trout Unlimited officer, summed up Corr’s contributions:
“Daves’s lifetime contributions to the outdoor communities, regional and statewide, are immeasurable.
“His passion to make the outdoor experience a better one for today and the future was at the top of his list. His knowledge, experience, and personality made him a respected advocate for outdoor enthusiasts and organizations. Many of his ideas and suggestions led to positive improvements in hunting, fishing, trapping, and the making access to public lands more available.
“Dave’s leadership and guidance will be missed by all of us who wish to see future generations experience our New York public lands teeming with native plants, fish and animals, as well as cleaner and safer water and air for them to enjoy. Well done, Dave Corr.”
All good and all true.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Grouse are eccentric, but this one in Oriskany was really weird
