Rooster Spruce grouse (20141010) Supplemental featuring a Spruce Grouse

Well when you get the opportunity to spend 20 minutes with a cooperative rooster you have to take advantage of the time.

This bird was out on the edge of one of my favourite stops on Spray Lakes Road. It was a Thursday and so traffic was really at a minimum, this gave us a lot of uninterrupted time with this bird.

I know that I have stated it before, about the grouse-like birds, I really enjoy their patterning!

As you can see, we had some "early morning" light for these shots and the shadows are pretty long. Getting into the right position was easy with a bird this cooperative.

Here is a bit of a close-up that I have cropped to show off the head of this fine rooster.

This time of year, for a brief period, we actually get some pretty nice colourations. Here he is on a different background.

The black breast "plate" get a proper showing in this image with red to highlight the contrast.

This exercise was all about get the morning "grit". Grouse have no teeth so their food gets passed through their "gizzard" for processing. In order to assist this processing the birds eat gravel and other "grit" to have in their gizzard to mince their food before it gets to their stomach. Here you can see a piece of grit headed to the gizzard.

This is a shot that shows the feathering on the feet of these birds that goes right down to the toes. This is very important in assisting the bird to walk in the snow during the winter months.

I'll finish this supplemental post up with another "portrait" of this beautiful bird.

I hope that you enjoy this up close and personal look at this great bird, the rooster Spruce Grouse!

Turbo