Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 08:49:39 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Re: Bar Harbor In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi -- The "conventional wisdom" (however good that is) about the Spruce Grouse at Schoodic Pt. is that they come out at dawn or close to it to "grit" along the roadside. The habitat off the road is boggy, leaf-covered and doesn't have any obvious gravel, while the road in and up Schoodic hill is gravel and dry. I think this is not an uncommon behavior for grouse and pheasants -- in Thailand we were told to go to the roadsides very early (at a specific spot) and wait for the spectacular Siamese Fireback to come out onto the road for grit and I know in Finland we also saw the Hazel Grouse (same genus as Ruffed Grouse) along the roadside in the morning. I assume that the birds would be on the roadside at other times of day except for disturbance from cars or walkers. Gail Mackiernan Silver Spring, MD on 06/19/2003 7:44 AM, Rick Sussman at Warblerick@AOL.COM wrote: > Gail, > This is interesting to me. When we go to Shenandoah Nat'l Park in the summer > (we're going up tomorrow thru Monday) for camping we have very frequently had > Ruffed Grouse standing either on the road > warblerick@aol.com > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================