Yesterday, while touring Royal Blue Wildlife Management Area with manager = Stan Stooksbury, Dave Buehler, and Melinda Welton we encountered an = impressive flock of Ruffed Grouse. The grouse were just along the left = side of a dirt road about 15 feet from our vehicle, hidden in underbrush = just below an old coal mine strip bench. There were at least 10 birds, = with one person in the group counting as many as 11. They exhibited a = variety of different behaviors: two flushed when we first came upon the = group, some paced nervously back-and-forth neck feathers "ruffed" and = tails fully fanned, one flew up into a tree and watched over us from a low = branch, several others remained quite still and then were spotted as they = began to slowly creep though the underbrush, bodies bent close to the = ground. All were adult size, though a likely explanation for the flock is that it = contained either a single or several adult females with fully grown = juveniles. Troy Ettel State Ornithologist Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency P.O. Box 40747 Nashville, TN 37204 (615) 781-6653 Troy.Ettel@xxxxxxxxxxx =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx (423) 764-3958 =========================================================