I'm surrounded - send Alfred Hitchcock!

[Dean Romig]

Obviously the Alpha bird in the local pecking order. Great pictures Richard!





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[Gary Laudermilch]

It is fun to watch the interactions that occur in any wildlife population. Most people never get to see much, only snapshots in time. You have a unique opportunity. Enjoy and thanks for sharing.

[Richard Flanders]

My bird buddies are an important part of my winter life as the snow and cold just keep on going. They're my "kids" for sure. Funny thing about the alpha guy is that he made an impressive showing of being the tough guy on site but when another male had the thought, "Ok, this sucks and I'm hungry, let's finish this axxhole!" and trotted up and challenged the strutter, he turned tail and ran off! That was fascinating. Seems that a bully is a bully regardless of the species and they're often not as tough as they seem or would like to think.

[Richard Flanders]

Yesterday evening gave me something new in the bird world here. I was watching through the big front window, waiting for them to start coming in and come in they did. I watched two birds come in hot and disappear under the snow for a few seconds then pop just their head up a few feet from where they "crashed" in. I knew they did that and have seen their holes here before, but have never actually seen it happen. It happens very fast, so fast that you can't even tell exactly how they enter the snow; they just come in hot and disappear. Very cool. It's a great survival technique for evading night time predators. Ptarmigan do the same thing. I had a ruffie burrow at least 6ft here on the pad once. A predator like a marten will come around poking their head into the entry hole looking for a meal, which alerts the bird which busts out feet away to make a safe getaway. I did see one failure of this in the forest near here some years back. I was wading through knee deep snow hunting at -20F and came upon a feather pile next to a 12ft high spruce snag. An owl had clearly seen the entry hole and sat on the snag waiting for the grouse to emerge and jumped him when he did. Pretty smart owl. The snag was stained with a lot of scat and was clearly a regular perch for the owl. The grouse picked the wrong spot for his night roost.

[Dean Romig]

You're a lucky man Richard!





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[edgarspencer]

The grouse population is always under attack from one corner or another. This shot was caught by one of the many amateur/professional photographers in the Greenville Maine area. They all have a fascination with the incoming turkeys, but to me, they are just another threat to grouse that I worry about.

[Dean Romig]

Kathy and I just saw a mated pair of Barred Owls in the pine woods by my house yesterday. Of course the last grouse I saw around here was around twenty-five years ago. Where I hunt in Vermont there are loads of them and lots of turkeys and coyotes too. I think we're in for hard times up there though. The friend who owns the six-hundred acres that I hunt on has been selling off all of his softwood.... (grouse roosting areas).







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[Richard Flanders]

You get many turkeys there they might wreak havoc on the grouse population. They're quite the predator and will eat anything that will fit down their throat. I'm sure they'd love grouse eggs if they found a nest. When hunting in Montana this fall we kicked some turkeys up..... off a dead turkey that they were feeding on.

[edgarspencer]

I do not shoot anything I don't intend on eating, and there are several turkey breasts in my freezer to attest to that. Do you have any owl recipes?

[Big D]

I don't think turkeys affect grouse populations. Neither does the University of Tennessee.

https://ag.tennessee.edu/fwf/craigha...opulations.pdf