THE ESSENTIALS OF GOOD COVER DESIGN 607 



The preceding chapter painted with a broad brush the picture of what may be done and 

 what to avoid in improving conditions for grouse. In this chapter are pencil-pointed the 

 specific procedures and practices by which covert conditions and needs may be analyzed and 

 the forces controlling production marshalled in accordance with a pre-determined plan of 

 management. Succeeding chapters offers suggestions as to how cover and crop, predators 

 and buffer species, may be so handled as to maintain continued productivity. 



These are presented in considerable detail to provide as broad a basis as possible for those 

 interested in the intensive development of grouse coverts under the variety of conditioiis 

 characteristic of the bird's extensive range. 



No one realizes more clearly than the authors that grouse management is scarcely out of 

 its swaddling clothes. Under such conditions the procedures here suggested must not be 

 accepted as the only or perhaps even the best ones likely to accomplish the desired results. 

 They are suggestions to be modified as experience directs rather than cut and dried prac- 

 tices. But they are tried and workable. As such they represent a concrete starting point for 

 those who would venture into the relatively uncharted field of making two grouse live tomor- 

 row where but one exists today. 



How then does one go about analyzing and organizing grouse coverts according to a busi- 

 nesslike plan? Architects and land-use ex])erts call such |)laiuiing "design", though wildlife 

 managers have not yet widely adopted the term. The architect plans a structure to meet a 

 given use; the manager designs a game covert to produce game and other crops. Woods, 

 fields and fence corners, rather than steel, lumber and stone, are the materials with which one 

 must work but the fundamental steps are the same. In either case satisfactory results are 

 dependent on good design. 



THE ESSENTIALS OF GOOD COVER DESIGN 



The principles of cover makeup are presented in Chapter 111. Covert and type size and 

 shape, composition and arrangement are discussed on pages 111 to 11. '1 The role played by 

 the latter points is so decisive as to warrant a s-eparate section, found on pages 168 to 170. The 

 plant species, important as food, are detailed in Chapter IV and the makeup of ideal coverts 

 has just been pictured in the previous chapter. 



While these discussions provide the background for understanding effective cover organiza- 

 tion, a few points may well be amplified. The first of these concerns the role each cover type 

 plays in fulfilling grouse cover needs. 



Grouse are adaptable birds. No one of the many types of cover, that make up their hab- 

 itat, fails to provide some food and shelter at one or another season of the year. Since much 

 of this is, however, incidental, table 94 has been prepared to illustrate the principal require- 

 ments fulfilled by each type. 



Lest confusion arise between this and statements made in Chapter III. one must have clearly 

 in mind that this analysis is based not as much on the use made of each type as on the extent 

 to which they meet the major food and shelter requisites at the time in which they are impor- 

 tant. For example, patches of conifers are most frequented during eight of the twelve 

 months of the year. Yet only in providing winter shelter do they supply a prime need, not 

 also adequately filled by one or more other types. Thus, in winter they are of primary im- 

 portance. As another case to point, in spring many adults frequent mature woodlands where 

 available. Yet several other types are also largely used for feeding and resting. But the basic 



