Subject: [Tweeters] a grouse question
Date: Aug 29 16:00:25 2009
From: Byers - byers345 at comcast.net


Hi, Tweeters,

My husband Bill and I just returned from two days batting around
the North Cascades in the vicinity of Tiffany Mountain. On our first day
out, we drove to Freezeout Ridge and climbed Tiffany Mountain. As you may
know a huge acreage in this area was burned about two years ago. From the
top of Tiffany Mountain virtually all the forest to the north (up to and
including Tiffany Meadows) and to the west was burnt over. We thought we
would do well in the woodpecker department, and we did find one Hairy
Woodpecker, but that was it. There were lots of birds darting around in the
burnt out trees-many Clark's Nutcrackers, Juncos, and Mountain Chickadees.
Then, in this burnt timber, we spooked a good-sized group of grouse.
Several flew to a log near where I was standing and one stood still long
enough for me to get a brief look. The grouse was large, gray, and the tail
was uniformly colored to the end. So I assumed we were looking at "Blue"
grouse, but I couldn't remember which kind was supposed to be around Tiffany
Mountain.

On my return home Bill looked on Seattle Audubon's website,
which vectored him to Birdweb.org, which has excellent information about all
Washington birds. It turns out that Washington state is the only place
where both these grouse occur, at least in the US. It also turns out that
somewhere on the east slope of the Cascades is a place where either bird
might overlap.

So here's my question: was the group of birds we stumbled
across (most likely a mother grouse with some big kids) more likely to be
Sooty or Dusky Grouse? Have any of you other Tweeters found Sooty or Dusky
Grouse on Tiffany Mountain (I think the area is more famous for the
likelihood of finding Spruce Grouse). The SAS Birdweb range map shows the
range of the Sooty Grouse extending to just about Winthrop and the Dusky
Grouse starting just about there and including everywhere east, so that
should make our birds Dusky. Any ideas? Thanks. Charlotte Byers, Seattle