Hunting Washington Forum
Other Hunting => Upland Birds => Topic started by: ruttnbuck on April 13, 2017, 10:00:27 PM
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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?? :dunno::dunno:
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"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
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
