Ruffed Grouse

Ruffed Grouse, male gray form, displaying

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Ruffed Grouse, adult female, red form

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1. Description
2. Sound
3. Conservation Status
4. Other Names
5. Cool Facts
6. Full detailed species account

Many people's first experience with the Ruffed Grouse is when it explodes from the forest floor in a flurry of wings. Often, it's gone before they can turn around. The grouse's cryptic coloration and slow, deliberate walk make it virtually invisible.

Description

• Medium to large chicken-like bird.
• Thick bodied.
• Tail moderately long, rounded.
• Rounded wings in flight.
• Short crest on head.
• Cryptic coloring of gray and brown mottled with dark and light spots.

• Size: 40-50 cm (16-20 in)
• Wingspan: 50-64 cm (20-25 in)
• Weight: 450-750 g (15.89-26.48 ounces)

Sex Differences

Male larger, with subtle plumage differences.

Sound

Male drums with wings to produce a series of deep thumping sounds that increase in tempo.

Conservation Status

The Ruffed Grouse is an important game bird in most of its range. Management efforts seek to maintain early to mid-successional habitats. Eastern populations are likely to decline as deciduous forests mature and are fragmented by rural and suburban development.

Other Names

Gélinotte huppée (French)

Cool Facts

• The toes of Ruffed Grouse grow projections off their sides in winter, making them look like combs. The projections are believed to act as snowshoes to help the grouse walk across snow.

• In winter, the Ruffed Grouse may dive into soft snow to spend the night. Falling snow can hide the evidence of its entry. A grouse bursting at one's feet from flat snow covered ground can be quite startling.

• In much of their range, Ruffed Grouse populations go through 8 to 11 year cycles of increasing and decreasing numbers. Their cycles can be attributed to the snowshoe hare cycle. When hare populations are high, predator populations increase too. When the hare numbers go down, the predators must find alternate prey and turn to grouse, decreasing their numbers.

• Ruffed Grouse nests occasionally are parasitized by Ring-necked Pheasants or Wild Turkeys that lay eggs in the nests.

Sources used to construct this page:

Rusch, D. H., DeStefano, M. C. Reynolds, and D. Lauten. 2000. Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus). In The Birds of North America, No. 515 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.