Tweets,
The following descriptions were given to me by Amy McQuade of her sighting
and she has given me the permission to forward these comments to the
general forum. Baed on the following descriptions it would not completely
rule out Blue Grouse, but several parts including the comparison of eye
combs with Blues makes me think about the possibility of Spruce. I have
personally seen a fair amount of color variation in Blue Grouse (Both eye
coms and darkness of back plumage), but have not seen
the eye combs as bright red as the Spruce Grouse I've viewed (though only
a couple).
So far my two cents worth I would defiently not put this down as
positive identification of Spruce, especially since no black barring on
the breast area was seen but I would not eliminate the possibilty of this
being a Spruce Grouse either, its at least made me think.

Scott Downes
sdownes at u.washington.edu
Seattle WA



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 03:00:39 EDT
From: McBrdwchr at aol.com
To: sdownes at u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: ELWAS weekend

Scott:
It's been twenty years since we backpacked into Heart and Cream Lakes, by way
of Appleton Peak, but we saw spruce grouse on nearly every trip. Blues, too.
We learned to tell the males apart: spruce eye combs are a deeper red than
blue's orangey one; spruce seem overall black compared to blue's browner look;
spruce has quite a bit of white on face including large spot behind, below the
eye.

Thu 30 Jul:

As we viewed the birds, they were sitting a foot apart, facing away, in a
tall-grass area about 150 feet below us, so we could not see any chest
barring. Their heads were quite visible and much of their backs, also. The
overall impression was dark black, not dull black; and we could see lots
of white on the sides of heads as they turned, especially the big spot I
mentioned-which I never noticied on blue grouse (?)
I based my i.d. on that, the deeper red of the combs, and probable
misinformation available to backpackers in the sixties and seventies, who
were more interested in mammals than birds, then..

Warmly,
Amy McQuade