Jesse,

Your birds were unquestionably Sooty Grouse, as are all
"Blue Grouse" in the Mount Baker area. Dusky Grouse do not occur
west of the Cascade crest in Washington, which is a long way east
of Mount Baker.

If you can't wait for the forthcoming WOSNEWS, you could check
a copy of "Birds of Washington State" (1953) by Jewett et al. in a
library. There is a map of the breeding ranges of the 3 WA
subspecies on page 194, which is fairly accurate. Of these 3
subspecies, "fuliginosus" and "sierrae" are now included in
Sooty Grouse, and "pallidus" in Dusky Grouse.

You also asked about possible altitudinal movements of Sooty Grouse.
Yes, there is an upslope movement in the fall (and downslope in the
spring); Sooty Grouse seem to spend the winter mostly above 3000
feet altitude. However, Sooty Grouse are also quite common around
Mount Baker through the breeding season; I've heard lots of them
hooting around the Heather Meadows ski area (and seen a few) from
May through July.

Good luck and good birding,

Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus at telus.net





----- Original Message -----
From: "Jesse Ellis" <jme29 at cornell.edu>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 9:11 AM
Subject: [Tweeters] Blueg Grouse info please


Hi all-

I've gotten one response about the probable ID of blue grouse at
Mount Baker, but I'd really love to know where resources are that
define both range and differentiating characteristics of Sooty vs.
Dusky better. I believe there was some discussion of this, and I'm
not looking to resurrect a topic gone by already, but if any info
came up or especially if there are any archived accounts or resources
housed elsewehre that came up, please email me OFF LIST. Thank you!

From the scant resources I can find, the birds we saw at Ptarmigan
Ridge were somewhat intermediate. They had tail-bands (a la Sooty),
but had yellowish combs and lots of white on the breast feathers, a
la Dusky.

Thanks,

Jesse
--
Jesse Ellis, Ph. D. candidate
Neurobiology and Behavior
jme29 at cornell.edu
111 Mudd Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, 14853

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or
that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only
unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American
public." --Theodore Roosevelt

"The Inuit language for 10,000 years never had a word for robin, and
now there are robins all over their villages."
--John McCain, on global warming
_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters