Participant Photo: The Ruffed Grouse that touched my soul
I was out birding (from my car). The motor was running, and I was moving slowly forward watching the trees for birds. Suddenly I noticed movement alongside my car. This ruffed grouse was walking beside me, keeping pace with the car. I stopped the car, stepped onto the ground, and the grouse just walked around me as if to check me out. It was not afraid….perhaps it needed to know if I was an intruder. I was so moved by this encounter. I spoke softly and told it to leave as he stood in the middle of the road. It would not budge. I slowly got back into the car, and started driving, the bird kept pace with the car. I got nervous that another car would come, so I slowly increased my speed. I looked in my rearview mirror, and the grouse was flying to keep up with my car. It finally gave up as I went around a nearby curve, The experience was both moving and magical.
Categories: Other
Species: Ruffed Grouse
Comments
3 comments on “Participant Photo: The Ruffed Grouse that touched my soul”
Birds will always surprise you…you never know just what they will do. What a wonderful experience.
We have one just like that in back acres of our property. We will visit it, call it, and it will come quickly down the hill. It tends to stay on the ground or will hop up on the hood of the truck if we don’t exit the vehicle fast enough. When we drive away it will fly behind us. It touches my heart. The emotion pokes the back of eyes. We call it Georgie. Thank you for sharing. 🙂
We own some property in Washington State and my husband goes to a place ( a place he likes to go). We call it “the barn spring”. He goes there fairly often because it is the spring that produces the water for irrigation. Sometimes he has to go there to work on the system. Well lately he has been visited by a ruffled grouse. Every time he goes there this grouse visits with him. He even follows him a ways when he comes home. We have a cat so he really hopes he won’t come all the way with him ( our cat is an excellent hunter). He seems to stop after a while probably because it’s the end of his “territory”. Which is a good thing! Anyway my husband told me that this grouse (he hasn’t named him yet) when he comes to visit has actually perched himself on his arm! He is very touched by all this. My husband doesn’t usually show emotions like that very often! I’m glad he has a friend like that! Does any one have any ideas of a name for him? We think he’s a male!