COVER REQUIREMENTS OF THE GROUSE 151 



Adult Grouse Cover and Related Influences 



It is a pleasant part of every day's hunt to talk over in retrospect the experience of the 

 chase. Here a grouse was found feeding on frosted fruit under a wild thornapple tree. There 

 two birds flushed unexpectedly from a thicket of alder or birch. Conifers screened a third 

 that got safely away. Where were the rest of the partridge, and why were they, too, not found? 

 To the old-timer each new day's adventures, mellowed by experience, furnish fresh evidence 

 to substantiate impressions as to the probable behavior of the bird under a wide variety of con- 

 ditions. In a practical sort of way he becomes his own "expert"' in predicting where they 

 are most likely to be found and where they will fly to when flushed. His judgment may not 

 always be vindicated, for each grouse is an individualist in its own right, but there is never- 

 theless much of truth in what he may say on the subject. 



Wildlife managers, listening in, may perhaps be confused by the variety of often conflicting 

 opinions thus expressed. But to date there are few places, save for their own limited expe- 

 rience, to which they can turn for more exact impressions. As we have seen, in attempting 

 to chart brood preferences for certain kinds of cover, slope, weather and wind conditions, 

 it is no easy job to interpret correctly grouse behavior. The background of environmental 

 influences is so varied as to require the most careful examination of thousands of records be- 

 fore one can even recognize a possibly valid tendency for the bird to ad in a given manner 

 under a certain set of conditions. Yet there is no other way, known at the present time to an- 

 alyze grouse cover rpquiremcnts with sulTicient accuracy to justify the expenditure of hard 

 cash in improving the habitat to pnxhicc a larger grouse croj). In no other way can we sort 

 out the ideas and determine which of the old-timers' theories have real substance in fact. 



Let us then look at the record written by the birds themselves. To establish a pattern in 

 which we can place confidence, individual variation has been largely compensated for by an- 

 alyzing 19.619 records of adult flushes from tlie three main regions of the State. To leaven 

 out any radical differences which might be apparent in any one year all flushes from 19.30 

 through 1936 were tabulated. To insure representation from each region, four study areas 

 totaling 10.000 acres were set up. one each in the Adirondacks and the (^atskiils and two in 

 the Southern Tier counties. Adult grouse contacts on these areas alone totaled 16.963 dur- 

 ing these years. 



In charting grouse reactions tt) some items such as cover types and slope still furliier re- 

 linenients were necessarv. The amount of each type and slope had to be determined and the 

 record of birds found in each situation adjusted accordingly. If. on a study area, one type 

 of cover occupied much more of the land surface than another, yet both were equally attrac- 

 tive, birds might be expected to be found thereon in proportion to the size of each area. 

 This would result in a seeming prei)onderaiice of birds being found in the more extensive 

 types unless su(ii aTi adjustment were made. One ("mds ibis difference evident in comparing 

 tables l.S and 1.^3*. 



To correct this situation the number of flushes in each type of cover had to be expressed 

 on a "per acre" basis. In making up some tables it was even found necessary to consider 

 the changes in the extent of each cover type taking place while the Investigation was in prog- 

 ress. Some of these were surprisingly large as abandoned meadows grew up to brush or 

 small slashings were cut only to fill in to sprouts and berries in a few years. 



To keep track of such items on all the study areas was a task beyond the resources at 



* See Appendix, p. 819. 



