The Oregon Sportsman 



Volume III JUNE, 1915 Number 6 



THE SOOTY OR BLUE GROUSE 



The Largest of Our Wood Grouse, Commonly Known Because 



of the Elusive Hooting of the Male During 



the Nesting Season 



NE of the first signs of spring in the woods of 

 western Oregon is the hooting or booming of 

 the sooty grouse. The love call or hooting of 

 the sooty grouse is a sound that is very hard 

 to locate and equally difficult to describe. It is 

 a deep, resonant "hoot! hoot! hoot!" that may 

 be imitated by a sound made back in the throat with the mouth 

 closed. It is repeated three or four times rather slowly, then 

 two or three times more rapidly, as if running down the scale. 

 When the male is booming, the air sacs on each side of the neck 

 swell out. This hooting of the sooty grouse is very different from 

 the drumming of the ruffed grouse or native pheasant which is 

 made by the rapid beating of the bird's wings against its body. 



There are two species of blue grouse nesting in Oregon. The 

 sooty grouse (Dendragapus obscurus fuliginosus) lives throughout 

 the western part of the state and in the Cascade mountains, and 

 the Richardson's grouse (Dendragapus obscurus richardsoni) is a 

 resident of the mountainous sections of eastern Oregon. I have 

 found the latter species quite abundant in parts of Wallowa and 

 Baker counties. This bird seems to migrate to a certain extent 

 here in the eastern part of the state. It is found in the higher 

 mountainous regions during the winter time, but comes down in 

 the valleys to breed. When found in the fall season in the moun- 

 tainous sections, it is not very wild, not nearly so wild as the 

 sooty grouse of the western part of the state. One can often get 

 quite close to the Richardson grouse. I remember in the summer 

 of 1912 of seeing a flock of about fifteen or twenty of these birds 

 along the south shore of Wallowa lake. They were feeding at 

 the time on grasshoppers which were very abundant. They flew 



