Sooty or ruffed grouse

[ruttnbuck]

Ok so i watched an episode of meat eater on netflix the other night (season 5 episode 15) and he was hunting sooty grouse in alaska. The noise these grouse make is kind of a whoop whoop whoop , probably 4 or 5 times in a5sec period . By the way i live in thurston county area , but anyways i was our on a evening hike up behind some gated logging roads and starting hearing that same noise in the big timber ...so I've hunted this area for 30 yrs and have never seen a sooty grouse , i know ruffed grouse make the drumming noise which I've heard a million times out in the woods, do ruffed grouse make the same noise also like sooty  or do we have sooty grouse here in western wa? I've seen a few blues over the years so maybe there blue grouse I'm hearing??   

[bobcat]

"Sooty grouse" is a blue grouse. They decided to change the name a few years ago. Now we've got "dusky" and "sooty" grouse, depending on if you're in eastern or western Washington. They're all still blue grouse to me.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/01312/wdfw01312.pdf

[ruttnbuck]

Wow that's good to know,  i heard probably 5 seperate grouse last night all making that same noise....i didn't realize there where that many blues in this area.  In the last 25 -30 yrs I've probably only seen 3 blues in this area . Thanks!

[bobcat]

I've experienced the same thing. This time of year when I'm out in the woods I often hear a lot of blue grouse in places where I rarely or never see them.

[GBoyd]

I definitely hear blue grouse hooting in places that I never see them during the hunting season. My theory is that they're birds that spend the summers and falls up at higher elevations, but they breed down in the lowlands.

[Henrydog]

That is a big 10-4 Gboyd I have shot a fair amount of Blues over the years, but they are always over the 4000' on the quad sheet.  When I was a kid growing up North of Lake Wenatchee we used to have a lot of Spruce grouse, I have not seen one in 25 years.