GROUSE : Family Tetraonidae [ 2.1 5 ] 



in the willow and alder bottoms. The earliest Oregon record that we can 

 refer definitely to this form is that of Bendire (1875), who reported it as 

 rare near Camp Harney. References in literature to the Canada Ruffed 

 Grouse as an Oregon bird all belong to this race as at present defined. 

 Our only actual nesting record is a nest found by Jewett on Beech Creek, 

 Grant County, July z, 1915, containing six eggs. When he visited it on 

 July 5 he saw two young birds. The families stay together well into the 

 fall, during which season they can be found feeding in the berry patches, 

 sometimes in company with Richardson's Grouse, or foraging through 

 the thickets of lodgepole pine gathering the berries of the kinnikinnick 

 or the seed pods of pipsissewa. The birds are subject to a variety of dis- 

 eases, some of which possibly account for cycles of abundance and scarcity 

 that appear in the species. 



The drumming produced by this grouse when the wings are beating 

 rapidly has caused a great deal of discussion among naturalists as to 

 whether the booming sound is made by the wings alone or by clapping 

 them together over the back, striking the strutting leg or the sides of the 

 body. The controversy seems finally to have been definitely settled by 

 the use of motion pictures that show distinctly that the sound is pro- 

 duced by the wings alone. 



The Gray Ruffed Grouse is one of the best known and best loved of 

 upland game birds. Where it is persistently hunted, it soon develops an 

 almost uncanny knack of bursting into full flight at the most inopportune 

 moments; that is, from the hunter's point of view. It seems always to 

 launch into the air behind a tree or to dodge quickly behind one, or else 

 to choose the moment when the hunter is entangled in a fence. These 

 tricks make wing shooting of Ruffed Grouse the highest test of a hunter's 

 skill and give the bird its reputation as one of the sportiest of game birds. 



Oregon Ruffed Grouse: 



Bonasa umbellus sabini (Douglas) 



DESCRIPTION. "Like B. u. umbelloides, but much darker; upper parts black and dark 

 rusty or reddish brown, rarely with any gray; tail usually deep rusty, rarely grayish; 

 under parts heavily marked with blackish and washed with buffy brown." (Bailey) 

 Downy young: Similar to Canada Ruffed Grouse and Gray Ruffed Grouse. Nest and 

 eggs: Similar to those of Gray Ruffed Grouse (Plate 34, B). 



DISTRIBUTION. General: Vancouver Island and British Columbia south on coast to 

 central California. In Oregon: Resident of coast counties, Willamette, Umpqua, and 

 Rogue River Valleys, and Cascades, at least south to Mount McLoughlin, Jackson 

 County, including east slope of this range. (See Figure 5.) 



THE OREGON RUFFED GROUSE is the brown, strikingly marked Ruffed 

 Grouse of the Northwest. Its habits and behavior are identical with those 

 described for the Gray Ruffed Grouse, of which it is a darker and hand- 



