The Verkelmpt female Ruffed Grouse and me: EcoEcho in Action

I live on the edge of a deciduous forest and I mow the lawn with an reel push mower. Suddenly I see a ground bird come towards me out of the forest. I had never seen this kind of bird before, so I froze and stared, to get the i.d. of the bird. It got closer to me and then veered off back into the forest. I quick went in the house and realized it was a female grouse - my first sighting ever.

The bird book said if you hear something that sounds like a 2 cycle lawn mower in the forest - that's a grouse mating call.

I didn't think much of it and went back out to finish mowing. It had been about almost 10 minutes since the female grouse had gone back into the forest. But suddenly the female grouse reappeared, heading straight towards the lawn mower.

I suddenly realized I was mimicking a male grouse mating call. Immediately I went back in the house and the female actually followed me up to our bird feeder.

We get lots of birds right now. The other day we had an Oriole and hummingbird at the same time, and a blue jay and female grosbeak and downy woodpecker all near by, around the feeder.

So I was hoping the female grouse would discover the bird seed - there is usually enough as the wild turkeys always like to eat off the ground as well.

But no - this female grouse was "verkelmpt" - as I dubbed her situation.

She did not even eat the bird seed! She was forlorn to having lost her male ruff grouse!!

The female went back into the forest. Amazing.

That was EcoEcho in action if I ever had experienced it.