168 COVER CHARACTERISTICS AND SHELTER REQUIREMENTS 



In spite of the variance in risinfc. no especial flifference in the s])ace covered liefore aliphtin^ 

 was noted as between the sexes. 



Tendency to alight in tree 



While the great majority of grouse contacted have flushed from the ground, nearly two- 

 thirds of them chose a tree in which to alight (table 171)*. Presumably, birds disturbed on 

 the ground feel safer in a tree from which vantage point they can watch the progress of ter- 

 restrial enemies. This tendency is more pronounced in ojjcn types where there is a scattering 

 of trees than in woodland cover. 



THE ROLE OF COVER COMPOSITION AND ARRANGEMENT 



A house on a hilltop may serve poorly the needs of the man who must work in the valley. 

 With wildlife, the situation is even more pronounced for if food and sheher are far apart the 

 birds are always exposed to their enemies in traversing the intervening distance. The thickest 

 stand of conifers is but seldom occupied for long unless food is to be found close by. 



Partridges are able to find some food in almost every brushlot or woodland. Yet the fact 

 that the birds frequent certain types of cover at certain seasons is evidence that conditions 

 there, at such times, more adequately meet their needs. In part this may be due to the sea- 

 sonal presence of preferred foods but the prime reason for this choice seems, in many cases, 

 to be that these foods are found in combination with adequate shelter. 



Thus cover composition and type arrangement become major influences which help to 

 determine where grouse are to be found and in what numbers. If there is one key more 

 important than another to the maintenance of a good crop, it is here. Like the instruments 

 of a great symphony in which each plays a definite but. to the layman's ear ofttimes indis- 

 tinguishable part, so the divers items, from history to hunting, from biology to breeding, 

 occupy niches of varying importance in coordinating the fones. the sum of whose interac- 

 tions determines grouse abundance. The instruments that carry the theme, and they are not 

 always the same for each part, cannot be out of order without losing the effectiveness of the 

 whole composition. 



So it is with cover. Shelt<i and food are the theme song around which grouse production 

 is built. On the adequacy of cover, more than one realizes, depends the success of the 

 birds in protecting themselves from their enemies, in rising a])ovc bad weather, in avoiding 

 accidents, disease and starvation, and in jiroviding good hunting. 



The needs of the birds change with age. sex and with the seasons. Their choice of cover 

 varies accordinglv. To the extent to which their habitat is not adcqiialc to tnccl all their varied 

 requirements. ])roductivity suffers. 



It is no surprise, then, to find that good grouse cover is characterized bv a varied composi- 

 tion and arrangement of types. This is simjjly another way of saving that the covert vegeta- 

 tion is so arranged as to provide an infinite variety of food and shelter, of sunning and dusting 

 spots, of drumming and nesting sites. This ])rinciple holds within each individual cover type 

 as well as for the covert as a whole. 



Fidlowing the same fundamental idea, the more composite tlie vegetation is in each indi- 

 vidual type, the less imjiortant is a high degree of inlerspersion of types. Thus, stands 

 composed of but one or two species seldom support tiic profusion of undergrowth and ground 



• See A|i|M'nHi«. p. 844. 



