![]() ![]() Males are aggressive, as far as defending their territories and trying to find mates. We wonder if females maybe just exhibit this behavior differently. We don’t necessarily think it means that it’s just males that can exhibit this behavior. Every report that I’ve gotten so far, in photos and videos of grouse, and all the ones that I’ve captured so far or have encountered in the wild, have been males. Reina Tyl: That’s something that’s really interesting. Kara Holsopple: And is it just the males? The thought was that maybe during that time of year, because their hormones start ramping up for breeding, they just are more likely to exhibit that behavior toward people. Male grouse this time of year become really territorial, defending their breeding territories, but also they drum to attract females. Some of the other theories are that because it appears to be more common during the spring breeding season or sometimes in the fall when there are similar amounts of daylight to nighttime, people just thought maybe it was just a hyper-aggressive behavior during the breeding season. That they would eat old berries from the summer that had a chance to ferment, and maybe they were a little tipsy and so they were behaving abnormally. Some of the theories in the past were that the birds were drunk. That’s part of what we’re hoping to investigate. Reina Tyl: I will say we don’t know exactly what causes it. Kara Holsopple: What causes this “tame” behavior? What are some of the theories? The Allegheny Front’s Kara Holsopple recently spoke with Tyl about it. This spring the game commission is asking the public to report sightings of tame grouse as part of a larger study. “A lot of times they’ll run up to people, even show aggressive pecking at their pant legs,” Tyl said. Reina Tyl, a wildlife biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, says some people think that’s a misnomer. But this time of year, a small subset of the birds display another behavior–they’re not afraid of humans, leading to the name “tame grouse.” They’re brown, a little bigger than pigeons, and males have a band of dark feathers around their necks that puff up when they want to get a mate. Ruffed grouse are wild birds hunted as game, and they like to live in young, dense forests. But for a few weeks in the spring, a few of them are a bit bolder. Pennsylvania’s state bird normally hides out in woodlands, away from people.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |