EAGLE COUNTY — How it is that the lark bunting came to be the Colorado state bird is anyone’s guess. The sparrow, and a fall migrator at that, is hardly representative of the state’s character or its grandiose landscape.
A better case, if it pleases the court, might be made for the dusky grouse. Formerly known as the blue grouse, it’s a workingman’s bird, a mountain dweller that makes its summer home in highland meadows and migrates in reverse to spend the cold of winter in the conifers of Colorado’s upper elevations.
Of course, you can’t hunt the state bird. But if there were such a thing as the state game bird, ol’ blue just might have the popular vote to win the job in 2014.
As long as we’re bestowing honorary titles, let’s go ahead and designate 2014 as the Year of the Dusky Grouse. To hear the early deer and elk hunters tell it, it’s all but impossible to walk more than a few feet through the woods without stumbling into covey upon covey of grouse this September. While grouse hunting can be a chore in an off year, favorable spring conditions evidently yielded a bumper crop of birds.
“I’ve never seen so many grouse in my life,” said John Marshall of Boulder, who headed to the high country to hunt deer with a muzzleloader this week. “I’ve hunted up here for 30 years, and I’ve never seen grouse like I have this year.”
Marshall’s tale has been echoed by many in the central mountains since grouse season opened Sept. 1, including stories of archery hunters harvesting birds by bow in their downtime and dedicated grouse hunters kicking up coveys like they did in the “good old days.”
But the thing about dusky grouse is that they just seem to be on their own schedule. One minute you can hunt them with a pickup truck or a well-thrown rock, and the next minute they’re invisible, leading hunters on a wild grouse chase up and down the steep hillsides better suited to the gait of an ungulate.
“On the opening day of deer season, I was kicking coveys up all over the place,” Marshall said. “So I decided to go grouse hunting in the afternoon. I took off with my shotgun and walked for miles and never kicked up a single grouse in four or five hours. But as soon as I put my shotgun away and grabbed my rifle again, it was grouse, grouse, grouse.”
Marshall’s experience likely has as much to do with the birds’ general unpredictability as anything else. Sometimes spooky, sometimes not, they would just as soon hold tight in dense cover and rely on masterful camouflage as take their chances in flight. When they do fly, hunters can expect a downhill, zigzagging trajectory.
Other typical patterns, according to experts at Colorado Parks and Wildlife, are a preference for south-facing slopes away from wetter areas until cold or drought drives grouse upward in elevation. Typical elevation ranges from 7,000 feet to 11,000 feet, but for now the birds seem to favor the middle of that spectrum where they’re huddled along aspen stands with heavy cover.
Hunters will find success along the edges of sage and aspen stands, moving up in elevation and into denser forest as the season progresses. A close-working dog, whether pointer or flusher, can be a terrific asset when the birds need a nudge to take flight.
Although dusky grouse aren’t known as particularly early risers, the dry, elevated terrain they favor can wear down a dog quickly, making the cool morning hours a good option as the birds make their way to the field to forage. In late afternoon, they are often spotted along gravel roads, where their IQ can be called into question as they occasionally engage in a staring match with your bumper.
For such a large bird — about the size of a chicken — dusky grouse don’t demand much in the way of killing, another reason they’re a favorite side hunt for big game chasers packing a sidearm, a small shotgun or even a rubber-tipped arrow into some of the most scenic country in Colorado.
