Hi Tweeters:

Saturday I was hiking up around Blue Lake, about 10+ miles or so west of Baker
Lake around the 4,000+' elevation (NW Washington, in the Cascade mountains,
south of Mt. Baker). Heading east back down the gravel forest service road
towards Baker Lake (Baker Lake was about 7 miles to the east), a female blue (?)
grouse crossed the road and went up the hillside with her two chicks. A very
beautiful sight to watch. It was very mottled/molting looking, so it was hard
for me to tell if it was a blue grouse or maybe a spruce grouse? I watched it
at close range with my binoculars for about 15 minutes. I settled on a blue
grouse because of the pale terminal band, with broken barring, on the wedgey
tail. The grouse's mottling was mostly brown/some black/whitish (very little
reddish-brown coloring). I also didn't really see any grayish coloring. But
since I am unfamiliar with habitat and the different grouse, I'm wondering if
someone could tell me a little about this. Are blue grouse around there? Where
are spruce grouse usually found? The only grouse I've seen in Western Washington
is a lot of ruffed grouse, and it definitely wasn't that. If there are some
habitat limitations, that would take care of my questions.

Franny Drobny
Seattle, Washington
fdrobny at cairncross.com