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July 30, 2006

To potential hiker-birders in potential Spruce Grouse territory in northern Whatcom County:

I recommend you take a snapshot of any female grouse, and then identify it later. Sibley's is useless for the local version, as far as tail pattern goes. I wonder what museum he got his study skins from.

The National Geographic field guide comes the closest to what I saw, although the old Peterson's Western Birds field guide has the closest tail pattern. The tail and upper tail coverts on the red morph in Nat Geo are close, and the top of the head of my bird had a ground color of rusty brown (with black cross-barring). But the upper parts of my bird otherwise looked more like the gray morph. I didn't see (or ignored) the underparts of my bird. Be sure to look at the narrow white markings and their placement in the head region.

Juveniles, at least the ones I saw in Manning Provincial Park, have generally rufous ground color throughout the upperparts, and look more like the red morph depicted in Nat Geo. But I only glimpsed them disappearing into the underbrush while following their mamma.

Good Luck!

Phil Hotlen
Bellingham, WA
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