612 DESIGNING GROUSE COVERTS AND SETTING LP MANAGEMENT PLANS 



to seek buds and berries in the adjacent overgrown lands. Here escape cover from predators 

 is often deficient in winter. This is one of the reasons why from 10 to 20 per cent of a pre- 

 dominantly coniferous plantation may well be planted or left to grow up to food-producing 

 broad-leaved species. The more such hardwoods can be scattered through the plantation, the 

 better are the conditions for grouse. 



Another common grouping (6) is to have conifers surrounded by hardwoods. Conditions 

 here are likewise unfavorable for grouse because of a lack of productive summer and fall 

 feeding grounds. 



The same may be said of hardwoods bordering mixed hardwoods and conifers (combina- 

 tion 7) since no provision for variety in summer and fall feeding grounds, as represented bv 

 slashings and overgrown lands, is made. 



The above cover groupings are often associated with regions where the land is being, or 

 was once, farmed. In the more heavily wooded regions of the State, few grouse are com- 

 monly to be found except where man or nature has made substantial breaks in the forest 

 cover. Such situations often result from lumbering or from land clearance followed by 

 moderate pasturing. Where the cut-over areas or slashings are surrounded by hardwoods 

 (combination 7), adequate winter shelter is lacking in the latter t\pe and is provided but 

 moderately in the slashings. The result, in terms of birds is, accordingly, disappointing. On 

 the other hand, where the cover surrounding the slashing is composed of mixed hardwoods 

 and conifers, as in combination 8. this deficiency is eliminated. Providing a slashing is old 

 enough to furnish excellent summer and fall feeding grounds, the result is usually a rather 

 productive habitat. 



Perhaps the best combination fairly frequently encountered is where mature hardwoods 

 and conifers are to be found adjacent to second-growth, which is in turn adjacent to a belt 

 of overgrown fields (combination 9). Open up the cover a bit more by making a few small 

 slashings in the hardwoods and conifers and the habitat becomes as nearly perfect as arrange- 

 ment of cover types can make it. This is illustrated in combination 10. 



From the al)o\e it is evident thai type arrangement, as well as coin|)(isition. plays a decisive 

 role in determining the number of grouse an indi\ idual liabitat can produce. It is equally true 

 that the greater the number of good habitats in a c()\ert. the larger the nund)er of grouse 

 likely to live there. Conversely it is ])erfectl\ ])ossiblc to have an adequate aninunt of each 

 cover type present in a given covert and still produce hut few grouse. This ])rinciple is illus- 

 trated in figure 64 where both areas contain the same amount of each important cover type. 

 Yet onlv in "B", where all types are within short distance of each other, does more than one 

 really productive grouse habitat exist. Here, though the total amount of each type is the 

 same as in "A", they are so arranged as to furnish many more units of complete bird or 

 brood cover within the same area. 



To translate this theoretical conceijlion into a practical situation as it might exist on the 

 ground, let us glance at covert I of figure 6.5. Here the only really desirable habitats for 

 grouse occur at the point where hardwoods, slashings and mixed woodlands meet and along 

 the dashed line between the laller l\\(i Ivpcs. One would exi)ect to find but few grouse in a 

 covert so composed. By way of illustrating the o])posite silualion. coNcrl 2 idntains about the 

 same amount of each type but so arranged as to provide not one Inil clcvi-n piniluctixc hab- 

 itat spots (identified bv circles) as well as seven particularly desirable edges. Tlie normal 

 level of abundance in this covert would exceed that in covert I, in most years, many fold. 



