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The Wily
Grouse
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TOM ALEXANDER
I was leading a horseback group
one beautiful morning last May
through a stretch ol hardwood forest
in the headwaters of Cataloochee
Creek in the Smokies. The old mare
I was riding suddenly spread-eagled,
started as if she'd seen a bear coming,
and refused to move on. The horses
back of us stopped too. cars pitched
forward, wondering what was going on
up forward.
there was a fluttering and hissing
noise beneath my horse's head and
when I looked down there was a
mother grouse attacking my horse! Her
neck feathers stood straight out, her
tail was spread and dragging the
ground, and she was jumping knee
high up the mare's front kgs. clawing,
pecking, and slapping with her wings.
My old steed, wise from many years
in the woods, had quickly recovered
her equilibrium and gust stood there
taking the beating.
I knew what it meant and looked
about in the nearby greenery for the
babies. I quickly spotted four or five
of them struggling through the twigs
and stems of the forest floor just above
the upper trail bank, and pointed them
out to the riders back of me. They
were evidently newly hatched and
hardly as big as ping-pong balls, little
brownish fluffy chicks hunting some
kaf shelter to squat under, whik the
mother held our whole string of horses
at bav! Even while we watched them
the little fellows disappeared com¬
pletely. Each had simply melted into
some old brown List year's leases un¬
der one of the May Apple or Loose¬
strife plants that covered the forest
floor.
That was a typical episode in the
life of North Carolina's greatest game
bird, the Ruffed Grouse, or "pheas¬
ant'* as the natives call them. Wise
and wary beyond bclkf in hunting
season, yet fearless and almost indif¬
ferent to humans at times, this un¬
predictable thunderbolt of the moun¬
tains has won the affection of all who
know it. It has never been "on relief
as have quail and wild turkey and
ringnccks. Eagerly sought after since
the very first pioneers penetrated the
hills, it has survived and thrived by its
own devices, and at times becomes
relatively plentiful, as it is this year.
In North Carolina grouse are con¬
fined exclusively to the mountain re¬
gions. They arc forest birds primarily ,
but do show a preference for the edges
of old ckarings that have grown up in
saw briars, grapes, sumacs and haw
bushes. Once in a whik they will ven¬
ture out a little ways in the open,
but will shoot back into the woods
on the first flush. Unlike quail they
do not normally congregate in large
coveys. They may feed together in
small groups of three or four, and
rarely there will be as many as ten
or twelve in a small area, but only
where there is some especially good
food available.
They arc perhaps our most om¬
nivorous game bud In scientific
analyses of their crops and gizzards.
investigators have found buds, twigs,
fruits, berries, seeds, grains, acorns,
flowers, leaves and roots: eggs, larvae,
cocoons, pupae, nymphs and spiders;
snakes, small birds, clams, mussels,
and cottontail rabbit fragments and
hair (Nobody knows how a bird
weighing a pound and a half could
eat a cottontail rabbit!); bits of glass,
lead shot, and roofing nails! The green
leaves of mountain laurel arc com¬
monly eaten in winter, though this item
is poisonous to sheep and other do¬
mestic animals. I have had my dogs
and cats mildly poisoned from eating
the offal of grouse that had been diet¬
ing on laurel leaves, and we have felt
some ill effects ourselves after eating
the meat of a grouse that had fed ex¬
tensively on these poisonous leaves.
The meat is not as tasty from birds
that have fed on certain bitter plants.
Papa grouse is a ventriloquist of the
first order. In spring and summer and
on clear warm days in the fall he will
get up on a log and beat the air with
hrs wings, making a drumming noise
that can be heard quite a distance, a
half-mile or more. You think it is com¬
ing from one direction and is a long
ways off. You start in that direction
THE STATE. J*NU**> I. 1*55
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