Why Mr. Grouse is the friendliest bird in the woods

When Bill Hartline bought 50 acres of wooded land outside Muncy, Pennsylvania, he was looking for a little solitude and a place to eventually build a new home in retirement. But during a camping trip there in early 2020, he discovered the wooded lot wasn’t as lonely as he thought. That evening a grouse – a bird the size of a crow, with a small mohawk and spotted feathers – appeared at his feet.

“I crouched down and said, ‘Hi.’ He cooed back and started following me,” said 66-year-old Mr Hartline. “Three years later, he still follows me.”

That’s putting it mildly. Mr. Grouse, as he has named the bird, seems to get involved in everything Mr. Hartline does. Mr. Grouse rides the tractor, jumps on ladders and enjoys the campfire from Mr. Hartline’s shoulders.

It’s a far cry from the behavior of most grouse, whose stealth and elusiveness are why hunters call them the ‘king of the hunting birds.”

“He is extremely friendly but, to be honest, he can also be difficult,” Mr Hartline said.

When Mr. Hartline or his guests try to drive away, the bird throws itself under the car. “He never wants you to leave, and he’s learned that if he’s under the car, you don’t leave,” Mr. Hartline said.

He can also become “too friendly,” as Mr. Hartline puts it, by untying shoelaces or pulling hair.

Still, Mr. Hartline says he considers Mr. Grouse a friend, though he is curious why the bird chose him. Researchers may soon have the answer.

During a recent study of the genetic health of Pennsylvania’s dwindling sage grouse population, a team of scientists provided a surprise: A genetic abnormality called chromosomal inversion was present in a significant number of samples. Such inversions occur when a DNA segment breaks off and reattaches in reverse order.

Chromosomal inversions in birds can manifest in an obvious characteristic, such as a difference in appearance or behavior, according to Julian Avery, an ecologist at Pennsylvania State University and member of the research team.

“They may migrate less or interact differently with other genetic populations,” he said. “They will exhibit strange behavior.”

For grouse, being unusual is more the norm.

“Grouses are crazy bizarre,” said Dr. Avery. The birds, which are closely related to turkeys and quails, are poor flyers and spend most of their time on the ground, where they thrive on eating bitter, sometimes poisonous plants. In winter they grow comb-like extensions of their toes that act like snowshoes, and spend cold nights in snowdrifts.

And then there’s drumming, a mating display in which the male beats his wings so quickly that the entire forest seems to vibrate. “Imagine a car with bass in the trunk – you feel it,” said Dr. Avery. “It’s an amazing sensation.”

But the newly discovered inversion did not correlate with any apparent behavior or characteristics such as gender or color pattern.

“So we just started racking our brains about grouse,” said Reina Tyl, a wildlife biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission who was also part of the research team. ‘Is there anything strange about a grouse? The first thing that occurred to me was the existence of domestic grouse.”

Every year, reports emerge of so-called domestic grouse from the woods of Pennsylvania and other northeastern states. Videos online show docile birds standing next to a snow blower in a a stranger’s garagerelaxing the lap of a bewildered bowhunter And sit on the steering wheel of heavy machinery, cameras inches from their beaks.

They have been given names such as Gracie, Dingy And Bob.

There are a number of explanations for the phenomenon: that the birds are drunk on fermented berries or are trying to defend their mating territory from potential competitors. Another hypothesis states that the birds have a “genetic inheritance‘ from colonial times, when they were so fearless that people called grouse ‘silly chickens’ and went hunting with them sticks and stones.

Could chromosomal inversion explain the existence of the uninhibited birds?

“It seemed like a clear behavioral difference that we could easily look at,” Ms Tyl said.

In March, more than 100 people responded after the game committee place a call for sightings of domestic grouse. Ms. Tyl then spent months meeting the most outgoing grouse in Pennsylvania.

To lure them out of the forest often required an audible stimulus similar to the males’ drumming – for example, the roar of an all-terrain vehicle’s engine.

“I took a chainsaw to a few locations,” Ms Tyl said. Once she had the grouse in hand, she determined the age and sex of the birds — all seven she caught were males — examined their mouths for DNA and took photos of their tail fans. The birds were typically released in five minutes or less.

“For the most part, they would say, OK, enough. I am a domesticated grouse, but that was a bit too much, even for me,” said Ms Tyl.

But not Mr. Grouse.

As the other birds fled after their release, Mr. Grouse turned, she said, eager for more human company.

As Mr. Hartline awaits results from the Penn State team next year that could determine whether Mr. Grouse’s kindness is written into his DNA, he has been exploring his own methods of living with a bird that doesn’t always show his kindness. respects. boundaries.

“When I go camping and I open my tent door, it zips right in,” Mr Hartline said. So he bought Mr. Grouse his own little screened tent. “Now I’ll sit outside his tent, and he’ll sit inside,” he added.

So far, the compromise seems acceptable to both sides. “He’s happy just hanging out,” Mr. Hartline said.