Spruce Grouse (Falcipennis canadensis)

Status: State Threatened (1997).

Occurrence: Uncommon resident in northern Wisconsin; regularly present in winter south to Sawyer, Lincoln, and Florence counties. A map outlining Pre-1977 and 1997 to Present Distribution is available.

Aid to ID: Male has a dark throat and white barring on the breast; his dark tail is tipped with chestnut, and a comb of red skin above the eye can be seen at close range. Female is heavily barred, dark rusty brown, and tip of tail is also chestnut. Female has high-pitched call

Habitat: Large tracts of lowland coniferous forests with swampy regions; including white spruce, white cedar, balsam fir, yellow birch, black ash, tamarack, American elm, and red maple.

Food Habits: Blueberries, bearberries, bunchberries, needles (spruce, pine, fir, larch, and tamarack), white birch buds, woodfern, Christmas fern, sedges, mosses and insects. During winter, consumes diet of nearly 100% conifer needles.

Natural History:

Breeding: Clutch size: 4-10 buffy eggs with large brown spots; laid in late May and early June. Incubation: 21-23 days. Young fledge 10 days after hatching.
Nest: Well-concealed depression in the ground; lined with dry grasses, leaves, and twigs. Nest often under low branches of spruce, jack pine, or white pine; in brush; in deep moss; or adjacent to a tree trunk or stump.

Management Considerations: Generally, preservation of large tracts of coniferous forest. Recreational incursions into remote areas are a disturbance factor. This species has cyclic population swings.