Blue Grouse Day

We went north to Trinity Mountain via Redding, which is about a 2.5 hour drive from Davis. Our friend Dennis said there were grouse booming out beyond French Gulch. I’ve never seen a blue grouse, and it’s been ages and ages since we’ve seen Dennis, and he back so fresh and sprightly after running the killer Boston Marathon on Monday…

We got up into the grouse area just in time to see a very loud chainsaw, aka motorcycle, barrelling down the logging road. Oh well. No grouse is likely to be within a 3-mile radius of that racket, we thought. We split up, enjoying singing Nashville and hermit warblers and almost resolved to return to Davis with no grouse sightings but at least a wonderful new spot to bird in!

Well, Dennis and Numenius soon heard the grouse booming further uphill. Sprightly Dennis came racing down the mountain to get me and I struggled up, winded, eager to hear it but still not expecting to see it. We looked for the bird for about an hour—the booming never wavered, but it’s so ventriloqual that we were disoriented. We all forgot, though, to look up: we expected this grouse to be on a favorite log.

The bird was about 80 feet up in a Douglas fir and just peeping out.

It’s really hard to write about seeing a bird without it being a variation of the classic “I rounded the corner and there, on a branch, was a __.” The thrill is recognized by other birders and it’s possible to experience it vicariously, which is why so many of us enjoy showing new birds to other people. Birding is, after all, a collector’s activity-you collect names rather than stamps or coins-but sometimes a combination of circumstances makes the experience stand out. I had waited a long time to see this bird; we got faked out by its strange sound; and it had no problem with our thrashing around in the pine needles and poison oak 80 feet below. But mostly, I enjoy sharing birds with good friends. Thanks for this one, Dennis.