Sooty Grouse
Sooty Grouse: Large, chicken-like bird, dark gray to blue-gray with yellow-orange eye comb, black tail with wide pale gray terminal band. Patch of yellow skin with red veining on neck surrounded by white feathers is displayed during courtship. Formerly (with Dusky Grouse) known as the Blue Grouse.
● Song:
"whoop-whoop-whoopo-whoop"
● Foraging & Feeding:
Sooty Grouse: Feeds almost exclusively on conifer needles in winter. In spring, summer, and fall, their diet includes the leaves of herbs, flowers, ferns, and conifer needles. They also eat many fruits and seeds, including cherries, currents, huckleberries, and strawberries. Forages on the ground.
● Breeding & nesting:
Sooty Grouse: Seven to sixteen pink buff eggs, usually spotted brown, are laid in a ground scrape lined with pine needles and grass, usually sheltered by a stump or rock. Incubation ranges from 25 to 26 days and is carried out by the female. Precocial young leave nest soon after hatching.
● Similar species:
Sooty Grouse: Male Spruce Grouse has white bars on breast, barred back, and brown terminal tail band. Female has narrow rust-brown terminal tail band, white bars on underparts. Ruffed Grouse is browner, has black subterminal tail band and more white on underparts. Dusky Grouse has thin to no gray terminal band on tail, male has yellow air sacs, red-orange combs over eyes.