Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus), Popular Game Bird

A ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) in a New Hampshire
birch thicket.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012. Do not copy.

With several inches of hard, ice-crusted snow on the ground, ground feeders like the ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) can have a hard time finding food. Fortunately, the upper branches of most trees tend to remain relatively snow free, especially if there's a little wind to knock the snow off. The ruffed grouse, therefore, can often be found in the treetops after a particularly deep snowfall or when the snow has frozen over with a hard crust. That's where I spotted this one.

This ruffed grouse is about 25 feet high in the trees, and was walking along the branch eating birch catkins. Normally, the ruffed grouse is a ground feeder, eating berries, buds, plant shoots, and fallen nuts that it finds there.

The ruffed grouse is a large bird measuring about 17 inches long with a plump, round body. As such, it is a favorite game bird of New Hampshire hunters. In fact, says New Hampshire Fish and Game, fully two-thirds of all the hunting hours logged by small game hunters were spent in pursuit of the ruffed grouse. Hunting season for the ruffed grouse in New Hampshire runs from October 1 through December 31 and requires a small game permit. I don't hunt myself, and generally don't allow hunting on my property as I enjoy the presence of the animals that live here.

When I first moved to our home in New Hampshire, I would often hear a strange, low-pitched noise coming from the woods. It was a slow thrumming sound that increased its pace over the course of about 15 seconds before stopping. It was the call of the male ruffed grouse. Actually, not a call, but rather the sound the bird makes during it territorial display, flapping its wings at an increasing pace moving its wings so fast with each flap that the sound of air rushing to fill the void left by the moving wind makes a loud, low pitched sound almost like a hushed drumbeat.

Unfortunately, I haven't heard this sound from the woods behind my house for the last two years. Either the male ruffed grouse that was there has moved or died. There is, however, a female that still resides in my yard. Every so often when I am walking through the woods, I will inadvertently flush it out and catch a brief view of it as it wings away from the perceived threat. I try not to startle it or go to areas where I know it hangs out, but it sometimes feed next to a walking path that I use.

Ruffed grouse prefer to live in areas of thickly growing small trees. Aspen is their favorite, but other species will do. The thick growth of small trunks gives them cover from predators and provides a source of food. In my yard, there is a decently-sized area of successional birch growing too thickly for a person to comfortably walk through. This is perfect home territory for ruffed grouse and it is in or near this area that I typically find them.

 

Quick Facts about the Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus):

Where does it live? The ruffed grouse lives in the forest and makes its nest on the ground. Depending upon the food availability in a given year, a ruffed grouse requires a range between 4-40 acres per bird. Females tend to be more mobile feeding throughout the ranges of several males during the winter. They range through most of Canada and the northern United States.

Diet: Plant buds, fruit and berries, young plant shoots according to Birds of Eastern North America: A Photographic Guide. It's hard to imagine, though, that they won't take forest beetles and other insects as opportunity presents.

Where does the ruffed grouse go in winter? The ruffed grouse stays right here all year round and does not migrate, although as I mentioned above, it's feeding habits may change when its usual dining table, the forest floor is made inaccessible by snow.

IUCN Red List status: Species of Least Concern, however, the IUCN notes that although it does not meat the threshold of vulnerable due to its wide range and population size, the population trend of the ruffed grouse is declining.
Breeding: According to the Natural Resources Conservation Services of Minnesota, the ruffed grouse hen lays 9-14 eggs over about two and a half weeks and then incubates them for 23-24 days before they hatch. Like chickens, the hen doesn't start incubating the eggs until the nest is full. Until then, the eggs remain in a dormant state. That allows all the eggs to hatch at about the same time. Although they will follow the mother hen around for 8-12 weeks, the ruffed grouse chicks are able to feed by themselves as soon after hatching as they get hungry. The mother, however, provides protection from predators by attempting to draw attention away from the chicks if a threat comes too near.

Ruffed Grouse Taxonomy:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Galliformes
Family: Phasianidae
Genus: Bonasa
Species: Bonasa umbellus

Trailcam catches a white-tailed deer- finally!

The broad, brown tail with a white tip confirms the species
as a white-tailed deer.
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011. Do not copy.

After determining that white-tailed deer do, indeed, live in my yard based on the tracks they left in the snow and the droppings they left, I placed my trailcam in a spot that I thought was likely to be frequented by passing deer. The evidence of tracks in the snow at this location made that an easy choice, but there are other clues that this might be a good travel route for deer as well.

Glens (long, shallow valleys among the hills) are
often preferred terrain for deer trails.
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011. Do not copy.

The daylight photo at the right shows the terrain a little better. You'll notice that it is relatively clear of underbrush, making it easy for deer to walk through. Second, a little glen runs through this particular area. A glen, of course, is a small valley-like area or a low point with higher ground on either side. Deer seem to choose glens, most likely for the natural cover they provide, as their preferred  routes of travel through the forest.

Male or Female?

At this time of the year, male white-tailed deer have antlers for the rutting season. later in the winter, their antlers will fall off, but for now (and during hunting season) antlers are the easier way to distinguish bucks from does. The lack of antlers on this deer says that it is a doe. From the size relative to the plants around it, it looks as though it is an adult female. It looks well-fed.

Determining a Deer's Sex with Hoof Prints

In the photo, you can see that as this deer is walking, it move its right front and left rear feet at the same time and vice versa. With each step the rear foot comes up near the front foot of the same side.
When tracking deer, I've been told that you can tell the sex from the hoof prints alone. I didn't know if it was true, but this picture seems to confirm what I've heard. The story goes like this: female deer walk with their rear feet outside (or wider) than their front feet because they have wider hips for giving birth. Bucks, on the other hand, have broad, muscular chests to carry the weight of and fight with their antlers. This widens the distance between their front feet making the buck's front feet wider apart than their back feet. I can't verify the accuracy of this method, but that's what I've always heard and this picture of a doe confirms that her rear feet are indeed wider than her front feet. With a number of similar photos of both sexes, we could answer this for sure, one way or the other.The rear foot will often be placed either a bit behind the front foot print, or even on top of it, partially covering it.

Trailcam Photo Quality 

The trail cam photo of white-tailed deer at the top left of this entry has been adjusted by me using a basic photo editor. I adjusted brightness and contrast until I felt the deer was easier to see. You'll notice the small branch in front of the camera that seems to have affected the focus a bit. I've removed the branch so that, hopefully, the next photo will be clearer. The original, unretouched photo is at the lower left of this entry.

Unadjusted trailcam photo taken using an infrared
flash in the dark of night.
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011. Do not copy.

You can also see from the time stamp on the photo that it was taken at 2:58 a.m. EDT on the morning of December 10th. That was the day before a full moon and there was quite a bit of moonlight giving good visibility that night. The trailcam's date stamp feature lets you know what time deer are active at specific locations. BY tracking time patterns, you can see if a particular deer uses the trail regularly, perhaps to journey back and forth to a preferred feed spot.

I've mentioned previously that deer tend to feed in the early evening hours and early morning hours, right around dusk and dawn. Remember what animals with this pattern are called? They are called crepuscular feeders. White-tailed deer are often hunted during the daylight hours when they can be found walking around actively. Finding them active also at this late hour of the night means that deer can be found roaming the woods at practically nay hour of the day or night.

Tracking White-tailed Deer in my Backyard

Even though it is old and detail has been lost due to
melting snow, we can still be sure that this track was
left by a white-tailed deer.
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011. Do not copy.

In the summer, it can be difficult or impossible to know how many animals or what species walk through the woods in my back yard. I can set out a trail cam, listen at night, or sit quietly and wait for something to walk by, but these areimperfect methods at best. Many animals will smell me and avoid the area,  get missed by the trailcam's motion detector or pass by so silently that I never notice them. In the winter of New England, however, it is a different story.

Animal Tracks in the Snow

That different story is told by tracks in the snow. After a fresh, light snow, animals make very clear and distinct footprints that identify them as accurately as a good photograph. Of course, that only applies to fresh prints that have not had time to melt and lose their detail. Today, three days after four inches of snow fell, I went out to see what kinds of tracks I could find in the woods in my back yard. It is a warm day, and it's been warm for several days since the snow fell so it has mostly melted away. There is still about an inch or two of snow in most places in the woods, but is it slushy and wet.

Nevertheless, even with fine details metled away into oblivion, there is enough evidence to give us some idea of the animals that have passed by.

Hoof Prints in the Snow

Tracks of a white-tailed deer walking
calmly through my backyard.
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011.
Do not copy.

Some animals tracks are very distinctive and are very difficult if not impossible to mistake even when most of the detail is gone. One such set of prints are those of the white-tailed deer (Odocileus virginianus). It is one of just two common hooved animals in the forests of New Hampshire. The other is the moose which has much larger feet. This, of course, excludes hoofprints found on the roof of a house after December 25th, which could only be magical reindeer.

Moose Prints or Deer Prints?

So when we see footprints that look like those in the photo at the beginning of this entry, with two distinct halves in each print, a twin-teardrop or arrowhead shape, and a lack of individual toes, we can be pretty certain that they are deer or moose prints. Deer footprints tend to max out at about 3" in length, while moose prints typically run 4.5-5.5" in length. The one thing of which we need to be careful, however, is that footprints in melting snow tend to get bigger over time. If the snow melts a bit, refreezes and melts a bit more, the apparent size of the prints can be quite different than they were when fresh.

How Many Deer Live in my Backyard?

In walking through my back yard, I ran across about half a dozen separate sets of deer footprints. I don't count single paths with multiple sets, because it may be the same animal walking back and forth over the same familiar path. Indeed there's no real way to know if the same animal made more than one set of prints in different areas. If the prints were fresh and distinct, I could measure them and those of different sizes could be attributed to different individuals. Because these are old, and the snow is melting, no reliable measurement can be made.

By finding places where there are multiple sets of deer prints, I can find a good location to set up my trailcam to try to get some pictures of the white-tailed deer that live in my yard.

Do These White-tailed Deer Really Live in my Backyard?

My yard is only about 5.25 acres, of which about 1 acre is cleared and the rest forested. This not even close to enough room for a deer to live all the time. a white-tailed deer will range over an area of about one square mile even if food is plentiful. If food is scarce, then it may cover much more area. So while these deer don't reside in my yard 24 hours a day. My yard is certainly within their normal territory so we can say, yes, these white-tailed deer do live in my yard at least part-time.

In other parts of the country there are other species of deer so the identification from footprints would be much less certain, but in New Hampshire, excluding escaped farm livestock, there only moose and white-tailed deer that might leave hoof prints.

Finding a Fawn All Alone

If you should find a tiny fawn lying alone in the grass, rest assured that it has not been abandoned. When danger is near, the mother will hide the babies in the grass where they will lie flat and still until the mother's return. If the mother has more than one fawn, she will have each one hide in different places.

Quick Facts about White-tailed Deer?

When do they live here? White-tailed deer live in the forests of New Hampshire all year round.

Where do they go in winter? White-tailed deer do not hibernate and are active all winter long. They may take shelter under the branches of evergreen trees or in thich brush to escape the elements durign a particularly harsh winter storm.

Diet: White-tailed deer are herbivores (vegetarians). They will graze on grass in open fields and the eat tender shoots of young ground plants and  during the summer. In the fall, they may eat nuts and fallen fruit. During the winter, when there is a deep snow cover, they  will eat the buds and ends of small softer twigs from trees (which can be a problem for home-owners with ornamenal landscape shrubs like lilacs). Deer, like cows, are ruminants which means they have a stomach with multiple chambers (four) and regurgitate their food after it is partially digested to chew it a second time. This is called chewing their cud.

How big do white-tailed deer get? A big male can reach as much as 300 pounds in weight. The largest deer taken by hunters in New Hampshire in 2010 weighed 289.5 pounds according to NH Fish & Game Department records.

How fast can white-tailed deer run? Over short distances, white-tailed deer can run about 30 miles per hour. This is roughly equal to an average full-sized dog in good physical condition, but dogs can likely keep up the pace longer than the deer chasing it until it is too exhausted to escape or put up much of a defense.

What are the main predators of white-tailed deer? Humans are the main predators of white-tailed deer. In New Hampshire in 2010, hunters killed 9759 deer. Domestic dogs are the second largest killer of wild deer in New Hampshire.

Lifecycle of White-tailed Deer: Deer mate during a rutting season in the fall and early winter. Fawns are born about 7 months later. Typically, the female will give birth to one or two fawns each season. The babies may remain with the mother for one to two years before going off on their own. They reach adulthood after about 16-18 months are are ready to have babies of their own by the fall of their second year.

Lifespan: White-tailed deer usually live about 2-3 years. Maximum lifespan would be 20 years, but, says the University of Michigan's Animal Diversity Web, "few live past 10 years old." That's largely due to hunting fatalities.

Range: With the exception of the desert Southwest, white-tailed deer can be found throughout the 48 states and through southern Canada.

Interesting Notes: With adult males weighing 200-300 pounds, the white-tailed deer is the largest animal living in my yard that we've identified to date (although there are two larger animals that may also live here, we haven't identified them since I started this blog).

When a deer is walking at normal speed, the hoofprints will tend to be shaped like an arrowhead with the points at the front coming together. When it is running, however, the points tend to splay outward so that the front tips are angled away from each other.

Male white-tailed deer grow new antlers each year and then shed them typically between January and March after mating season has ended. The antlers are used to defend territory from other males during the mating or rutting season which makes the antlers at the largest size of the year during hunting season November-December. Females do not grow antlers at all.