SUN JOURNAL • September 10, 2022
The Ruffed Grouse, or as we say in Maine, pa’tridge, is the King of Game Birds for just about all upland hunters from the Great Lakes to Portage, Maine. Archaeology records indicate that grouse ancestry dates back to the Pleistocene Epoch, more than 25,000 years ago. Grouse eat just about anything in the woods and, when the winter winds and deep freeze closes in, they don’t migrate south. They burrow in the snow cover and dine on leftover buds. The question repeats itself year after year: “What’s the grouse outlook?” Maine’s state game bird biologist, Kelsey Sullivan, says that the grouse outlook for fall is “about average overall.”