Subject: [Tweeters] Dusky Grouse at Sun Mountain Lodge near Winthrop
Date: Jul 22 21:23:20 2008
From: enhunn323 at comcast.net - enhunn323 at comcast.net


Tweets,

I'm enjoying a leisurely vacation with family at Sun Mountain Lodge, which must be the "blue grouse" capital of the world. There are females with young on the lawn near the pool and scattered all about. I figure I've seen at least 30 just walking the paths radiating out from the lodge, mostly females with half-grown young. Since females and young are apparently unidentifiable as to whether they might be Sooty, Dusky, or something in between, I had been hoping to stumble on a sex-crazed male still displaying. Nancy spotted one male displaying to several potential mates our first morning here (yesterday) right beside the entrance road, but she was not aware of all the subtleties of distinguishing the two newly elevated species and I had wandered off in another direction. By the time I got a chance to look for this male he had vanished. I did locate a male later that day but it was just foraging on serviceberries and not interested in displaying. I studied it at 15 feet for twe!
nty min
utes but failed to note the shape of its tail feathers (not having done my homework in advance). Finally, this morning I heard the viagra-inspired male (a different individual than yesterday's male) booming down by the corral. A very low five-note hoot audible -- just as Sibley says -- not beyond about 50 feet. I tracked the fellow down and got decent photos of the whole procedure: the rose-pink inflatable air sacs bordered very broadly by white feathers, the blackish tail with virtually no terminal band (the other male showed a 3/4 inch slightly paler terminal band), the tail feathers nicely squared off, not rounded. As to whether the bird had 20 or 18 tail feathers, it proved a bit difficult to judge as it had lost nearly half of them, probably in some earlier dust-up with a rival, but I'm pretty sure the photo of the spread tail will show 10 on one side.

Sun Mountain Lodge is at 2900 feet elevation just above Winthrop in a big sagebrush / bitterbrush / bunchgrass association. This is my first really careful study of a Dusky Grouse, as I'd just passed them off before as Blues. The displaying male at Sun Mountain would appear to be 100% Dusky.

I've been puzzled by the biogeographics of the Sooty - Dusky split as it would seem there is no obvious habitat nor geographic division that would account for it. However, for what it's worth, there is a striking parallel in the division between Douglas and Red Squirrels. I note that the pine squirrels at Sun Mountain (and up toward Tiffany Mountain) appear to be the eastern Red Squirrel. Perhaps the grouse and the squirrels are both governed by similar biogeographic parameters??

I drove up to Rogers Lake and hiked part way up Tiffany Mt. this afternoon. I hadn't been here since the big fire. What devastation! At least the American Three-toed Woodpeckers find conditions to their liking. They seemed to be on just about every blackened trunk between Rogers Lake and the Freezeout Ridge trail.

Gene Hunn
18476 47th Pl. NE
Lake Forest Park, WA
enhunn323 at comcast.net