Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus)

County List:

Rule:

Forested or Mixed Forested/Nonforested Landscapes

Breeding and Non-breeding Season Habitat Requirements may be distributed over the COMPARTMENT

Breeding Season:  
      Lowland Brush
      or (Aspen (Sap))
(or those stands where upland deciduous regeneration is >15' in height)

Non-breeding Season:
      (Aspen (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw)
      or (Mixed Upland Hardwoods (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
      or (Mixed Upland Conifer (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))
      or (Mixed Pine (Pole or Sm Saw or Lg Saw or Uneven))

This rule contributed by Jim Hammill, MDNR

Habitat List:

view size class definitions

Literature:

Habitat: Ruffed Grouse are generally found in the early successional stages of forests. The male grouse selects a drumming log, which is surrounded by moderately dense hardwood regeneration or brush. Aspen is the single most important tree contributing to the survival of the ruffed grouse throughout the year. Aspen buds, catkins, and leaves provide a year-round food source. The flower buds of older aspen provide critical winter food, especially during extremes of cold weather. Fisher found poplar, birch, maple, alder, dogwood, willow, cherry, grasses, strawberry, and hawthorn important to grouse in Michigan. Young aspen stands provide breeding and brood habitat, and older aspen stands also provide secure nesting sites.

Habitat: Breeding: Broods prefer areas with dense woody cover overhead and fairly open herbaceous ground cover. Broods frequent regenerating stands of aspen, birch, and other hardwoods. Alder thickets, recently logged areas next to shrubby wetlands, and abandoned farmlands in the shrub and sapling stage are particularly attractive to broods. In extensive stands of pole and sawtimber, broods frequent logging roads, small clearings, and recently disturbed sites. Wintering: Day-time activity usually occurs in shrubby thickets and dense stands of hardwood saplings. Birds prefer to roost in snow burrows in open pole-sized hardwood stands. When snow is unsuitable for roosting, birds concentrate in dense brush or closed-canopy conifer stands.

Special Habitat Requirements: Drumming logs in hardwood saplings, small poles, brushy escape cover, hardwood stands for nesting and feeding, sunny openings for dusting. Strongly associated with the aspen type, especially in the Lake States. Grouse also occur in New England woodlands in which aspens exist only as scattered trees, or are absent. Old orchards are ideal fall habitat in New England.

Habitat: Ground and understory of deciduous or mixed woods. Over its wide range, found in a variety of woodland types. May favor mixed coniferous-deciduous forest, using coniferous trees for shelter, taking buds of deciduous trees as a staple winter food. Seldom founding pure coniferous forest.

Diet: Omnivorous. Feeds mostly on plant material. Diet includes buds, twigs, leaves, flowers, catkins, berries, seeds. Also eats insects, spiders, snails, occasionally small snakes or frogs. Diet varies with season, includes many fruits and berries in summer and fall. Buds of trees are important in diet in winter, especially in far north, where food on ground is buried by snow. Young eat mostly insects at first.

Nest: Site is on ground in dense cover, usually next to log, rock, or base of tree, or under dense shrubs. Nest is a depression lined with leaves, grass, or pine needles, often a few feathers.