Canachites canadensisspruce grouse

Ge­o­graphic Range

The range of the spruce grouse ex­tends from the south­ern por­tion of Alaska through much of the Cana­dian province of Yukon and into the North­west Ter­ri­to­ries. Its range on the west half of the North Amer­ica in­cludes the north­ern por­tions of the Cana­dian provinces of Saskatchewan and Al­berta, most of British Co­lum­bia, and the west­ern most por­tion of Mon­tana, the north­ern half of Idaho and small por­tions of north­east Ore­gon and north­ern Wash­ing­ton in the United States. The spruce grouses range on the east half of the con­ti­nent runs through most of Man­i­toba, all of On­tario ex­cept be­tween the Great Lakes of Huron, Erie, and On­tario. Most of Que­bec is in­cluded in its range ex­cept the north­ern por­tion be­tween Hud­son Bay and Lin­gave Bay. They are also found in all of the provinces of New­found­land, New Brunswick, Nova Sco­tia, and Prince Ed­ward Is­land and the north­ern sec­tions of the states of Maine, New Hamp­shire, Ver­mont, New York, Michi­gan, Wis­con­sin, and Min­nesota. (Boag and Schroeder, 1992; Johns­gard, 1973; Sib­ley, 2001)

Habi­tat

In the east, spruce grouse in­habit dense spruce, fir, cedar, and tama­rack swamps. They may also be found among hem­locks and other trees, but sel­dom out in the open. It has been noted that they may also in­habit growths of cedar, black spruce, and hack­mat­ack with oc­ca­sional wan­der­ings into areas of young bal­sams, and red and white spruces 8 to 10 feet high. In the west, spruce grouse be­come less de­pen­dent on swamps and pre­fer the higher ground of bo­real forests con­tain­ing black spruce and jack pine. Even though the veg­e­ta­tion type dif­fers through the spruce grouses' range, they pre­fer younger stands of trees which pro­vide cover with their low branches most often hang­ing to the ground. Win­ter habi­tat through­out its range con­sists of for­est with dense jack pine stands from which they feed (Johns­gard, 1973;El­li­son, 1974; Her­zog and Boag, 1978; Boag and Schroeder, 1992).

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The spruce grouse is a medium size, short-necked, stocky and short-tailed grouse. Adults are 15 - 17 inches long, with the male being slightly larger than the fe­male and more flam­boy­antly col­ored. Both sexes have brown or black­ish tail feath­ers that are un­barred. Males are dis­tin­guished by the black neck and breast patch, which is bor­dered by white-tipped feath­ers. Most no­tice­able on the males, though is the bright red patch of bare skin di­rectly above each eye. The fe­males, on the other hand lack the bright red skin patch above the eye and are barred on the head and much of their un­der-parts with black, gray and white. The tail feath­ers of both sexes of the Franklin's grouse sub-species are squared off and tipped with white, while the Taiga sub-species has round-tipped tail feath­ers with a broad brown­ish band (Boag and Schroeder, 1992; Sib­ley, 2001).

Im­ma­ture spruce grouse re­sem­ble the adults of their sex, ex­cept that their outer two pri­maries are pointed and marked with buff in­stead of the white as on the adults. Ju­ve­niles re­sem­ble adult fe­males. The dif­fer­ences they pre­sent are the buffy mark­ings on the tips of the upper wing coverts and on the pri­maries and sec­on­daries. The tail feath­ers show dark brown, barred, speck­led, and ver­mic­u­lated with lighter mark­ings. The sex of the ju­ve­niles, after 35-40 days, is de­ter­mined in the same way as that of adults (Johns­gard, 1973; Boag and Schroeder, 1992).

Re­pro­duc­tion

The spruce grouse are polyg­y­nous and males may mate with sev­eral fe­males. Male spruce grouse ad­ver­tise them­selves to fe­males with a va­ri­ety of strut­ting and aer­ial dis­plays. Dur­ing these dis­plays the male is fac­ing the fe­male giv­ing her full "vi­sual ef­fect of the eye combs, fanned tail, and the con­trast­ing breast col­oration".

Pre­cop­u­la­tory be­hav­ior of the male has him rush­ing the fe­male sev­eral times until he is close to her. At this point he watches her for sev­eral sec­onds, squats to the ground with neck stretched and head par­al­lel to the ground while the tail is ver­ti­cal and spread and the wings slightly spread and low­ered. There is only one record of ac­tual cop­u­la­tory be­hav­ior ever being ob­served. Har­jhu (1971) noted that as the male ap­proached the fe­male, the male made a "chal­lenge call" while he per­formed his tail flick­ing, neck snap­ping, and foot stomp­ing. He then moved be­hind the fe­male and mounted her.

  • Breeding season
    May - June
  • Range eggs per season
    4 to 8
  • Range time to hatching
    21 to 25 days
  • Average time to hatching
    23.5 days
  • Range fledging age
    2.5 to 4 months
  • Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
    10 to 12 months
  • Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
    10 to 12 months

The male spruce grouse does not par­tic­i­pate in ei­ther nest de­fense or brood rear­ing. Hence, the fe­male pro­vides all parental care dur­ing nest­ing, hatch­ing, fledg­ing, and brood-rear­ing. Spruce grouse nests are in well con­cealed lo­ca­tions in brush or deep moss near spruce thick­ets or under low branches. Nearly all fe­males at­tempt to nest. Av­er­age clutch sizes recorded have ranged from 4.9 eggs to 7.54 eggs. Oc­ca­sion­aly ren­est­ing may occur when the first nest is lost (Har­jhu, 1971; Johns­gard, 1973; El­li­son, 1974; Kep­pie, 1975; Boag and Schroeder, 1992; Whit­comb et al., 1996).

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Be­hav­ior

The non­cha­lant or un­con­cerned be­hav­ior of the spruce grouse to­wards hu­mans has earned it the nick­name "Fool Hen." On nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions these grouse have been cap­tured and upon re­lease move only sev­eral feet from its cap­tur­ers be­fore it be­gins to for­age for food. This is not the case when in the pres­ence of other po­ten­tial preda­tors such as hawks and owls.

Dur­ing the win­ter spruce grouse take ad­van­tage of the in­su­lat­ing ca­pac­ity of snow by bor­row­ing be­neath the snows sur­face. It has been noted that they may spend as much as 22 hours a day in these snow roosts. These roosts may be ei­ther a sin­gle pocket or co­tain both an en­trance and exit sev­eral feet apart, with most lo­cated 8 to 10 feet out from a tree to allow for an unim­peded es­cape should the need arise.

Male spruce grouse es­tab­lish and de­fend ter­ri­to­ries. These ter­ri­to­ries range in size from 10 to 15 acres, but not all are in­tense com­pact ter­ri­tory hold­ers. Some may be more no­madic, wan­der­ing over sev­eral square miles of the habi­tat. These no­madic wan­der­ings may bring them into the ter­ri­to­ries of other male spruce grouse, who are in­tent on de­fend­ing their ter­ri­tory and will ag­gres­sively en­gage the wan­derer in a fight. Most often these fights re­sult in a feather lost and/or a de­flated ego, but on rare oc­ca­sions they may re­sult in death.

The fe­male spruce grouse is usu­ally a very quiet bird un­less alarmed. Dur­ing the sum­mer, fall, and win­ter the fe­male makes very lit­tle vocal sounds, but as the breed­ing sea­son ap­proaches she be­comes more vocal. Dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son fe­males do be­come ag­gres­sive to­ward other fe­males. It is be­lieved that this is just show­ing an in­tol­er­ance to­wards the other fe­male and not that she is de­fend­ing a ter­ri­tory (Johns­gard, 1973; Robin­son, 1980; Boag and Schroeder, 1992).

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Food Habits

A ma­jor­ity of the adult spruce grouses' diet is made up of nee­dles from conifer trees. Such conifers in­clude the jack pine, white and black spruce, larch, lodge-pole pine, and ju­niper. Fruits and leaves of huck­le­berry, snow­berry, white man­darin, blue­berry, cran­berry, and crow­berry are also very im­por­tant to the grouses' diet dif­fer­ing slightly with sea­son and cli­mate. In some areas tama­rack is in­cluded in their diet. Spruce grouse chicks, under one week old, sub­sist on arthro­pods and after one week add huck­le­ber­ries to their diet. The young do not begin to eat conifer nee­dles until Oc­to­ber, but by No­vem­ber the nee­dles be­come the main stay of their diet (Johns­gard, 1973; Boag and Schroeder, 1992).

  • Animal Foods
  • insects
  • Plant Foods
  • leaves
  • fruit

Pre­da­tion

A sug­gested method of preda­tor avoid­ance is the uni­form dis­per­sion of males and fe­males over a lim­ited block of habi­tat dur­ing the re­pro­duc­tive sea­son. Also, spruce grouse per­fer sparse stands of young trees that con­tain liv­ing branches that hang to the ground. These branches pro­vide con­ceal­ment from preda­tors, but still allow ad­e­quate room for flight. If in a tree and the fe­male spots a po­ten­tial enemy, she will "utter a se­ries of cluck­ing sounds" (kruk, kruk, kruk), to warn oth­ers of their pres­ence. There have been no re­ports of in-flight alarm calls (Johns­gard, 1973;Her­zog and Boag, 1978; Boag and Schroeder, 1992).

  • Known Predators
    • Coyotes (Canis latrans)
    • Lynx (Lynx rufus)
    • Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis)
    • Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)
    • Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)
    • Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

The spruce grouse is con­sid­ered a game bird and hunted as such through­out most of its range. Only six states and two provinces do not con­sider the spruce grouse a game bird. In­di­vid­ual states and provinces that do allow hunt­ing enjoy prof­its from the sale of hunt­ing li­censes, firearms, am­mu­ni­tion, and other mis­cel­la­neous hunt­ing gear (Robin­son, 1980; Boag and Schroeder, 1992).

  • Positive Impacts
  • food

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Even they are not in dan­ger of ex­tinc­tion at this time, ef­forts to en­sure that their habi­tat re­mains sta­ble are on­go­ing. The south­ern por­tion of its range is in con­flict with human eco­nom­ics such as the use of poi­sons and pes­ti­cides, wood­lands turned into waste­lands, and the in­va­sions of homes, road­ways, and recre­ational use. We do know that the spruce grouse can be raised under ar­tif­i­cal con­di­tions, but it can only be truly whole when it is part of the com­mu­nity that in­cludes all other facets of wildlife, conif­er­ous forests of pines and spruces, and the four sea­sons of the north­ern hemi­sphere (Boag and Schroeder, 1992). Spruce grouse are a species of spe­cial con­cern in Michi­gan.

Other Com­ments

Some hunters con­sider the spruce grouse a "fool hen," and say there is no sport in hunt­ing them since they can eas­ily be taken with a rock or rifle. Oth­ers say that its habi­tat is too dif­fi­cult to hunt, and it is too tame and stu­pid to make the hunt in­ter­est­ing (Robin­son, 1980).

Con­trib­u­tors

Eu­gene Beau­doin (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Ari­zona, Jorge Schon­dube (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Ari­zona.

Glossary

Nearctic

living in the Nearctic biogeographic province, the northern part of the New World. This includes Greenland, the Canadian Arctic islands, and all of the North American as far south as the highlands of central Mexico.

World Map

acoustic

uses sound to communicate

bilateral symmetry

having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.

chemical

uses smells or other chemicals to communicate

endothermic

animals that use metabolically generated heat to regulate body temperature independently of ambient temperature. Endothermy is a synapomorphy of the Mammalia, although it may have arisen in a (now extinct) synapsid ancestor; the fossil record does not distinguish these possibilities. Convergent in birds.

female parental care

parental care is carried out by females

fertilization

union of egg and spermatozoan

folivore

an animal that mainly eats leaves.

food

A substance that provides both nutrients and energy to a living thing.

forest

forest biomes are dominated by trees, otherwise forest biomes can vary widely in amount of precipitation and seasonality.

frugivore

an animal that mainly eats fruit

herbivore

An animal that eats mainly plants or parts of plants.

internal fertilization

fertilization takes place within the female's body

iteroparous

offspring are produced in more than one group (litters, clutches, etc.) and across multiple seasons (or other periods hospitable to reproduction). Iteroparous animals must, by definition, survive over multiple seasons (or periodic condition changes).

motile

having the capacity to move from one place to another.

mountains

This terrestrial biome includes summits of high mountains, either without vegetation or covered by low, tundra-like vegetation.

native range

the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.

oviparous

reproduction in which eggs are released by the female; development of offspring occurs outside the mother's body.

polygynous

having more than one female as a mate at one time

seasonal breeding

breeding is confined to a particular season

sexual

reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female

swamp

a wetland area that may be permanently or intermittently covered in water, often dominated by woody vegetation.

tactile

uses touch to communicate

taiga

Coniferous or boreal forest, located in a band across northern North America, Europe, and Asia. This terrestrial biome also occurs at high elevations. Long, cold winters and short, wet summers. Few species of trees are present; these are primarily conifers that grow in dense stands with little undergrowth. Some deciduous trees also may be present.

temperate

that region of the Earth between 23.5 degrees North and 60 degrees North (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Arctic Circle) and between 23.5 degrees South and 60 degrees South (between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle).

terrestrial

Living on the ground.

territorial

defends an area within the home range, occupied by a single animals or group of animals of the same species and held through overt defense, display, or advertisement

visual

uses sight to communicate

Ref­er­ences

Boag, D., M. Schroeder. 1992. Spruce Grouse, Falcipen­nis canaden­sis. No. 5. Pp. 1-28 in A Poole, F Gill, eds. The Birds of North Amer­ica. Philadel­phia, PA: Amer­i­can Or­nithol­o­gists' Union.

El­li­son, L. 1974. Pop­u­la­tion char­ac­terit­ics of Alaskan spruce grouse. Jour­nal of Wildlife Man­age­ment, 38(3): 383-395.

Harju, H. 1971. Spruce grouse cop­u­la­tion. Con­dor, 73(3): 380-381.

Her­zog, P., D. Boag. 1978. Dis­per­sion and mo­bil­ity in a local pop­u­la­tion of spruce grouse. Jour­nal of Wildlife Man­age­ment, 42(4): 853-865.

Johns­gard, P. 1973. Grouse and Quails of North Amer­ica. Lin­coln, Ne­braska, USA: Uni­ver­sity of Ne­braska Press.

Kep­pie, D. 1975. Clutch size of the spruce grouse, Cana­chites canaden­sis franklinii, in south­west Al­berta. Con­dor, 77(1): 91-92.

Robin­son, W. 1980. Fool Hen. Madi­son, Wis­con­sin 53715: The Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin Press.

Sib­ley, D. 2001. The Sib­ley Guide to Birds. New York, New York, USA: Ran­dom House, Inc..

Whit­comb, S., A. O'Con­nell, Jr., F. Sev­ello. 1996. Pro­duc­tiv­ity of the spruce grouse at the south­east­ern limit of its range. Jour­nal of Field Or­nithol­ogy, 67(3): 422-427.