There are two types of tracks I am seeing everywhere on PEI this year: Snowshoe Hare (featured March 3), and the topic of today’s post: Ruffed Grouse. I suspect that, like Hare, Grouse have benefitted from the extra cover provided by trees that came down during Hurricane Fiona in 2022.
If you’ve been following my winter wildlife series, you’ll know that the classic bird foot (aka ‘anisodactyl’) has three long toes pointing forward and one long toe pointing back. Today’s track is a variation on this, with three long toes pointing forward and one short toe pointing back. This is the Game Bird arrangement, and today’s tracks were left by Ruffed Grouse (Photo 1).
Ruffed Grouse is our only native game bird, but non-native Ring-necked Pheasant and Hungarian Partridge leave similar tracks. A Ruffed Grouse track is distinctive in that it’s between two and 2.75 inches long, and the centre toe points to the mid-line of the trail. You can see this clearly in Photo 1, and it allows you to tell the bird’s left foot from its right.
Pheasant tracks are larger (three inches or more), the middle toe is straighter, and you can sometimes see drag marks left by their long tails. Hungarian (aka Grey) Partridge travel in groups called coveys this time of year and leave smaller tracks, less than two inches long.
The Grouse’s gait tells you about its lifestyle, and the space between the tracks tells you a bit about how it was feeling. Birds that spend a lot of time on the ground (like Grouse do) walk rather than hop. Under dense cover, Grouse feel safe enough to walk slowly, resulting in little space between tracks: the heel of one foot nearly touches the front toe of the one behind it (Photo 2, left). In open areas, Grouse need to step up the pace or risk being eaten. Here, you’ll see more space between the tracks (Photo 2, right), similar to the difference between a person walking versus running.
In fall, Ruffed Grouse grow fringes along the sides of their toes, called ‘pectination’ (Photo 3). This increases the surface area of the foot much like snowshoes do for us. If you get a really clear Ruffed Grouse track, you can see imprints from the pectination. These fringes are seasonal and will be lost in spring.
Ruffed Grouse also use snow to their advantage, diving into it for cover on cold winter nights. In addition to insulating the bird from wind and cold, this also hides its scent from predators. You can sometimes find a hole in the snow with Grouse scat at the bottom, sure signs of an overnight roost (Photo 4).
My favourite bird signs are the whole-body imprints that are most common following a heavy snowfall. If you’re very lucky, you may come across one made by an Owl catching its prey, but those left by Ruffed Grouse are much more common (Photo 5).
Often, these photos show up on social media with erroneous captions such as “owl catches rabbit”. In most cases – including the photo shown here – you can see the tracks don’t end at the body imprint, they start there; they don’t show prey tracks ended by an avian predator, but rather a bird that landed and walked away. In this case, the tracks show it was a Ruffed Grouse.
As we move into Spring, we’ll see fewer Ruffed Grouse tracks but will soon hear the distinctive sound of males trying to attract mates. If you’ve ever heard something in the woods that sounded like someone trying to start a small engine, it was likely a Grouse drumming. Males make the sound by quickly beating their wings, and it serves to both let the ladies know there’s an eligible bachelor around and warn competing males to stay away. It’s one of the most distinctive sounds of PEI Untamed!
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