Grouse

I thought it might be fun to do a series of posts of the wildlife I see here in Northern Alberta.
My thinking is that because we get a good number of hunters who come up from the US to hunt here, it might give folks down there who are contemplating coming this far north to hunt, some idea of what they could potentially encounter when they get here.

I did a thread on Owls a few days ago, today I will share some of the grouse species and their relatives we have. There is one I don't have photos of, that is a Ptarmigan. We do see them here and I have hunted them here, but I haven't seen one since I bought my first DSLR camera, so I have no photos of them to share.

Here is what I do have;

First a, Ruffed Grouse


Ruffed Grouse Drumming, their spring mating ritual


Summer Grouse



Spruce Grouse pair


Spruce Grouse beside the highway


Male Spruce Grouse, the females are very plain and look very like Ruffed Grouse.



Sharp Tailed Grouse


Sharp Tailed Grouse under my bird feeders


Sharp Tailed Grouse dancing. They spread their wings as seen, then stomp their feed franticaly as they circle about and make a deep booming call.
There will be several in one location doing this, they put on quiet a show.


Not actually a Grouse but a close relative, and not a native species.
Ring Neck Pheasant, on my gate. This is one of several that were released into the wild in the vicinity. This one survived three winters before disappearing.

Excellent photos.

Really appreciate and enjoy your posts

Great pictures, thanks for sharing

That’s nice to look at.

When I watch reality shows about the north country, a lot of them will just breast their birds, no way I would do that, I would pick and eat the whole bird.
I never even breasted a dove, I picked every dove I have ever shot, cut them in half, roll in flour and brown them, then smothered in gravy, that’s the way daddy done it.
We even cleaned the hearts and gizzards and cooked them along with it.

Plucking is my preferred method, and I also keep the heart and gizzards of all birds I shoot. The smallest birds legal to hunt here are introduced Quail. We have no native Quail.

But increasingly I see people breasting all birds, including Geese.
I even know a guy that builds a tool to make breasting even easier, and I he sells a lot of them.

But there's more. There is now a trend to do much the same with big game. They call it the gutless method. But that doesn't acuratly reflect what they are doing.
For many what it means is they cut off the legs and leave everything else except the back-straps.

I have always gutted my deer, bone the ribs out or leave them whole, plus I can get the midlin meat.

You got some mad photo skills. I like taking pics but mostly just the cell phone when out and about so sometimes decent but mostly just meh.

Thank you, I do enjoy taking pictures of what I see, so I can share it with others.

But my skill is more in knowing when, where and how to get close to wildlife. Coupled with a decent camera setup.

This is my camera. The Camera is a Canon T7i, the lens is a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens.

Dang Hogwart...that looks more like a telescope. LOL

Awesome pics , thanks for sharing

Or a cannon