The best recording I have of a Ruffed Grouse was made while we were
surveying for owls using tape playback. Everytime we played the Great
Horned Owl call the grouse would proudly thump out his presence a short
distance away. It appears to me that somehow natural selection is not
working well with some of these birds. I considered him for a Darwin award
but as far as I know no owl picked him off that night so he was ineligible.
Looking back it was a disturbance for this bird and did put it in danger.
Barb Beck
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
-----Original Message-----
From: Walter Knapp
Sent: February 27, 2002 2:53 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] Song Playback or Call-down technique.
Marty Michener wrote:
> Lang, I can just see it! Stories about ruffed grouse!
>
> One that drummed about 200 ft from the end of my driveway, for several
> years in a row, decided one year that every slow-moving vehicle was a
> territorial competitor. {Sound playback, mirrors, etc. have NOTHING to d=
o
> with it.}
Well, don't be so quick to judge. Maybe the sound of the vehicle was
what set him off. That's sound playback, sort of.
I have noticed that quite a few frogs will respond to a vehicle coming
by with calls. It's sometimes very annoying if they are being reluctant.
They will call like mad while the vehicle is passing and then shut up as
it dies away, only to do it again with the next vehicle. Kind of hard to
get a nice recording like that.
> He was not the only visitor to experience this Galliform tempest, and the
> bird kept it up, amazingly avoiding residence's cats and dogs for almost
> three breeding seasons. Now, we miss him (I'm allowed to say that,
right?)
Of course.
> At a point during all this, in April, I did record him one quiet morning
> with no roll-offs of any kind. During the recording process, the bird
> alternately drummed then acted like a nesting female, jamming its breast
> into hollows between the Cinnamon Fern fiddle-heads and making movements
> that I took at the time to be "come hither" gestures (sorry, again,
> Walt). One confused bird.
We can describe animal activities any way we like. I do it too. The
difference is knowing it's just a description without deeper meaning.
Walt
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