Subject: [Tweeters] eastside Dusky Grouse (old)
Date: Jul 12 22:29:18 2006
From: vogelfreund at comcast.net - vogelfreund at comcast.net


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July 12, 2006

Hi Tweeters,

As everyone has guessed by now, I've never gotten past the casual bird watcher stage. An old sighting of an apparent male DDusky Grouse is a case in point.

In the spring of 1991, I went on a field trip to collect bugs for a beginning entomology class I was taking (I've largely ignored bugs ever since). The trip took us as far as the Winthrop area, and it's probable that the (apparent) private property we were on part of the time is now developed. Anyway, I broke off from the others to investigate a rocky outcrop on the little hilltop, hoping to find a sunning rattlesnake. But I didn't find anything of interest there, so I meandered down the hill, in a round abbout manner. When all of a sudden, a huge black eagle/turkey, grouse/or ? flushed below me and sailed downhill and disappeared in the thickets. It seemed too large for a grouse, at the time. But then again, I had never seen a male Blue Grouse, before or since. I've vacilated with the identity for years, and had no intention of ignoring or omitting that large specimen from my Okanogon County List.

Although the morning was sunny, the tail looked all black, as did the upperparts in general. But I forced a Turkey ID on it anyway, since it seemed so large. In bright sun light the stark contrasts in lighting sometimes giive a false impression of color. I was close enough to have noticed a broad gray terminal tail band, but did not see one.

Now that it is clear that the "Dusky" variety of "Blue" Grouse is resident in the Winthrop area, I can safely drop turkey as the ID (which I nver was comfortable with anyway).

I must have put anyone reading this far to sleep by now.

Phil Hotlen
Bellingham, WA
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