Spruce Grouse - BirdForum Opus

Male
Photo © ronjames4_
Alaska, May 2005

Canachites canadensis

Falcipennis canadensis

Identification

40cm (15¾ in)

Grey overall plumage
Black breast with white bars
Black throat
Red area over the eye
Long square black tail, brown tip

Adult females are mottled brown with dark and white bars on the underparts.

Variations

There are two distinct groups:
Most and especially northerly birds, such as C.c. canadensis, have a rufous tip to the tail and lacks white spots above the tail.
"Franklin's Grouse," C.c. franklinii (including isleibi), has an all black tail with small white spots on the feathers overlying it.

Distribution

North America: Alaska, Canada and United States.

Taxonomy

This species has in the past been placed in genus Dendragapus or in genus Falcipennis.

Subspecies

There are 7 subspecies^[1]:

C. c. osgoodi:

Alaska and Yukon to Great Slave Lake and Lake Athabasca

C. c. atratus:

South Alaska (Bristol Bay) to Prince William Sound and Kodiak Island

C. c. canadensis:

Coniferous forests of Canada (central Alberta to Labrador)

C. c. canace:

South East Canada and adjacent US (Minnesota to Maine)

C. c. torridus:

Nova Scotia

C. c. isleibi:

Southeastern Alaska (Prince of Wales Island, and adjacent islands in the Alexander Archipelago)

C. c. franklinii:

British Columbia south through the northern Rocky Mountains to northeastern Oregon and central Idaho

Habitat

Boreal forest and taiga.

Behaviour

Diet

The diet consists mostly of conifer needles in the winter. Their summer diet, they add berries, green plants, and some insects. They eat small stones, to help their gizzard digest their food.

References

Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
Schroeder, M. A., E. J. Blomberg, D. A. Boag, P. Pyle, and M. A. Patten (2021). Spruce Grouse (Canachites canadensis), version 1.1. In Birds of the World (P. G. Rodewald, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.sprgro.01.1

List of references

Recommended Citation

BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Spruce Grouse. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 8 November 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Spruce_Grouse

External Links

Search for photos of Spruce Grouse in the gallery

GSearch checked for 2020 platform.