Sooty grouse
A large, dark forest grouse whose male hoots from bare yellow neck patches in spring, then walks itself uphill each fall to spend winter eating conifer needles.
Sooty grouse at a glance
Dendragapus fuliginosus SOOT-ee GROWSE; Dendragapus fuliginosus is den-DRAG-uh-pus foo-lij-in-OH-sus
- Type
- Bird · grouse
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Size
- A big bird, close to the size of a small chicken, 16 to 20 inches (41 to 51 cm) long, with males weighing up to about 2.25 pounds (just over 1 kg).
- Lifespan
- Most wild sooty grouse live 2 to 5 years.
- Conservation
- Least concern
Eats conifer needles (fir, Douglas-fir, hemlock), berries, leaves and buds, insects (chicks especially)
Most of the year it walks the forest floor and low branches eating berries, leaves, and insects, but by winter it moves into the treetops and switches almost entirely to conifer needles.
Should you worry?
None. It would rather freeze in place or walk off than fly, and a startled bird bursting up from underfoot is more likely to make a kid jump than the other way around. No need to approach; just watch where you step on a brushy trail.
A dark, chicken-sized bird can sit dead still in the firs above a Mount Rainier meadow, throat feathers smooth and giving no outward sign of anything, and still be the source of a hoot that seems to come from every tree at once and no single one of them, a sound so low it registers more as a feeling than a noise. Scan the nearest branch and you’ll likely miss him entirely, right up until the patches on either side of his throat pop out, bare skin ringed yellow and purplish-red, and the hoot rolls out again, this time from a bird you can actually watch do it.
That display is for spring. Come fall, a sooty grouse does something almost no other bird sharing its mountain does: instead of flying south or dropping to easier lowlands, it walks uphill, sometimes covering close to 30 miles largely on foot, into denser stands of high-elevation conifer. It settles in for a winter with almost nothing to eat but needles, fir, Douglas-fir, hemlock, chewing through a diet that would poison most animals but keeps a sooty grouse fed through months when the berries and insects it lived on all summer are long gone.
The chicks that hatch the following spring don’t get an easing-in period either. A sooty grouse chick comes out of the egg already covered in down, eyes open, and is walking and pecking at its own food within hours, trailing its mother through brush that would take an adult human a map to get out of. Watch the ground closely at a Rainier meadow in June and you might see one of those chicks doing exactly that: a few days old, already walking, already finding its own food, following its mother uphill before it can even fly.
Did you know?
- The male's neck patches are usually hidden under feathers and only pop into view during a display, so a bird calling all around a meadow can be almost impossible to spot until it inflates them.
- Sooty grouse and dusky grouse were considered one species, the blue grouse, until 2006, when ornithologists split them apart based on differences in voice, plumage, and range.
- A sooty grouse chick can walk, feed itself, and follow its mother within hours of hatching, long before it can fly.
Common questions
What is that deep hooting sound in the forest?
It's probably a male sooty grouse, inflating yellow skin patches on his neck and pumping out a low hoot to attract a mate. The sound is so deep it can be hard to tell which direction, or even which tree, it's coming from.
Do sooty grouse fly south for the winter?
No. Most move uphill instead, sometimes largely on foot, into denser high-elevation conifer forest where they spend the winter eating needles.
What do sooty grouse eat in winter?
Mostly conifer needles, fir, Douglas-fir, and hemlock, once berries and insects are gone for the season.
Are sooty grouse dangerous?
No. They'd rather freeze still or walk away than fly, though a bird bursting up suddenly from brush underfoot can startle a hiker.