The Drumming of the Ruffed Grouse 



By EDMUND J. SAWYER 



Illustrated by the Author 



IN the spring of 1907 I attempted to photograph a Grouse in the act of drum- 

 ming. I failed, but got several sketches of the birds from life, seeing scores- 

 of performances at a distance of forty feet. This was in Franklin county, 

 New York. My second attempt, made the following spring in Chenango county, 

 was more successful, as the accompanying illustrations show. 



My method was to go out early in the morning or just before sunset, and, 

 guided by the sound of the drumming, find the logs used by the Grouse. Locat- 

 ing a log well suited to my purpose, I would build a rough shack or "blind, " 

 just large enough to cover me while sitting on the ground. The blinds were made 

 of spruce or cedar boughs or slabs of bark, according to the surroundings and 

 material nearest at hand. Several of the shacks were used, all being placed 

 within about twenty feet of the Grouse while drumming. In one case some large 

 slabs of bark, placed against a convenient old board fence at the edge of a wood, 

 formed a neat blind which allowed me to watch a Grouse drum repeatedly, 

 and secure two of the photographs shown, from a distance of eighteen feet. 

 Usually, in order not to frighten the birds, I made the blinds and arranged my 

 camera in position about midday, when the Grouse were most likely to be out 

 of sight and hearing. 



In the morning the drumming is generally first heard at daybreak, but a 

 Grouse will often spend the night on or near his drumming log and drum from 

 time to time through the night. In order to witness the drumming in the early 

 morning, therefore, I spent the night in my blind. To watch the Grouse in the 

 afternoon period I entered the blind about three o'clock. It was sometimes 

 two or three hours later before the bird first appeared, and occasionally I waited 

 in vain till sundown. 



After once seeing a Ruffed Grouse drum, even from a distance of forty feet, 

 it was difficult for me to conceive how any one could be mistaken at that distance 

 as to the bird's way of performing the act. For the beating of the wings may 

 be easily followed at first, — though their exact outline, of course, is lost during 

 each lightning stroke, and may be seen to remain essentially the same, only 

 faster, till the end. 



We will suppose now that we are in a blind, say twenty feet from a drumming 

 log. After being repeatedly deceived into expectation by chipmunks, red squirrels 

 mice and Chickadees, we hear another rustling in the dry leaves which our 

 strained attention does not mistake. It is a measured patter of running feet 

 or a slow tread just heavy enough to crunch the leaves at every step or two, 

 and occasionally snap a dry twig. The next instant a cock Grouse hops to the 

 top of the log; his head is erect; his feathers lie close to his sides and, for a creature 

 as wild as any that haunts the woods, his whole manner shows only serenity, 



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