We have been looking for grouse off and on for the last couple of weeks. We found a female a week or so ago but what we really wanted to see was a male displaying to attract a mate. Grouse can be hard to find but they are slightly easier during the spring when the males are displaying and calling. We heard this one had been hanging around on the north side of Yellowstone Lake and looked for him a number of times. We found his droppings but we could never find him. Yesterday we left our trailer at 5:00 am and made the almost 2 hour trip to where he was supposed to be. Got there and NOTHING! I wasn’t going to give up that easily so I started wandering around looking for him. Finally I spotted him all hunkered down and not moving a feather. I motioned for my husband to bring his camera while I kept an eye on the grouse. He got there and started shooting and then I left to go get mine. This particular spot is well known to photographers in Yellowstone and over the next two hours we followed the grouse around while he ate and displayed. Other photographers saw us with long lenses and figured we had the grouse. Every one of them came up very quietly and stayed a safe enough distance from the grouse that he continued to eat, display, and call, a deep booming sound that can be difficult to locate.
At one point something seemed to scare the grouse and he ran straight towards me and stopped right next to my left foot. He was so close his tail was touching my shoe. I was dying to reach down and pet him but, of course, I didn’t. I motioned for my husband to take a photo of my foot and the grouse but by the time he did it had already started walking away. Dusky grouse used to be considered a subspecies of blue grouse. Recent DNA evidence supports a spilt of the blue grouse into two separate species, the dusky grouse and the sooty grouse. Dusky grouse live in the Rocky Mountains including Yellowstone.
After watching the grouse for a couple of hours we found a mountain bluebird nest hole. The male was around but we only got a photo of the female.
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Your photos and stories are wonderful. I hope to see a grouse this month in Yellowstone. I grew up in Nevada where the sage grouse are.
Glad that you had a good time with the grouse!