Subject: [Tweeters] The adventure of a live grouse in my car
Date: Feb 22 15:50:51 2006
From: Rob Sandelin - floriferous at msn.com


Well todays errands certainly turned out to be more exciting than I had
planned. Along the side of the road was a brown lump, and I have long had
the policy of investigating all road kills so I stopped and backed up. I
thought it might be a road killed owl but it turned out to be a ruffed
grouse, still warm. No apparent trauma, a nice specimen, so I lightly rolled
it up in the newspaper I keep in the back of my car and continued into town.
At the bank as I finished my transaction and got back into the car motion
from behind scared me that I was being mugged. Instead it was the grouse,
now fully alive and sitting in the middle of my backseat, bobbing its head
and clucking. Bank parking lots are not much for grouse habitat so I drove
the grouse out to a local park with better habitat. The grouse sat in the
same place the whole trip, clucking softly. In the park I opened the back
door expecting the grouse to immediately end this relationship. It stayed
put so I opened the door on the other side. It was raining pretty good at
this point so I got back into the drivers seat. The grouse sat, bobbing its
head and clucking. I reached out to see if I could push the grouse out with
my hand and the bobbing and clucking stopped and I got a good peck on the
hand, which I quickly withdrew from range. Hmmmm. Monkeys are smarter than
grouse, we are tool users. I went to the back of the car and rolled up some
newspaper to extend my reach and used that to push the pecking grouse out of
the car. It hopped down out of the car and I closed one back door and walked
around to the other and closed it. Then I heard a familiar clucking sound
from underneath the car, and sure enough the grouse had chosen to get out of
the rain under the car. Sheesh. I thought if I started the car the noise
would scare the grouse into the adjacent woods. No such luck. It was raining
pretty thickly and of course I had left my rain gear at home. I yelled,
stomped and kicked dirt at the grouse under the car. It was not so easily
dissuaded. Or maybe it wanted another car ride? Finally I ventured into the
wet brush, got a stick and poked the grouse out from under the car. As I
jumped in to drive away the grouse hopped up on a fallen log next to the
road and I came to the conclusion that if this grouse ran under the car
again, it was obiously destined to be roadkill and who am I to mess with
destiny? To my relief the grouse stayed on the log, bobbing and clucking as
I drove away.

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer
The Environmental Science School
HYPERLINK
"http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm"http://www.nonprofitpages.com/ni
ca/SVE.htm
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