Larch Creek Birds

What the birds (and frogs) are saying at a creek in western Washington
Plate 2
Sooty Grouse
Louis Agassiz Fuertes, The Game Birds of California, 1918
Bird

Sooty Grouse

Dendragapus fuliginosus
Pheasants, Grouse, and Allies (Phasianidae)
Summer visitor. Expected here roughly Apr to May.
Field marks
A big, dark forest grouse. The male is slate-grey with a yellow-orange comb over each eye and inflatable yellow neck sacs he is rather proud of.
Male & female
The female is mottled brown and much more cryptic; the male is larger and darker.
Voice
A series of deep, ventriloquial hoots from the treetops in spring, so low they are felt more than heard, and nearly impossible to locate, which is the idea.
Diet
Conifer needles in winter, which is like living on toothpicks; buds, berries and insects in summer.
Habitat
Conifer forest. Unusually, it moves uphill for winter, into denser forest where the needles are.
Nesting
A scrape on the ground under a log; 5–10 eggs.
Size
18–22 in long, up to 2¾ lb: a rotisserie chicken, which it would rather you didn't mention.

Formerly lumped with the Dusky Grouse as 'Blue Grouse'; the coastal form is the Sooty.

Season how expected it is here, week by week

50%100%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecheard at the creektoday
Fig. 1. BirdNET's range model for this location: the chance this species is present in each week of the year. Orange ticks mark weeks it has actually been heard at the creek; the dashed line is today.

At the creek 7 calls on 3 days, first Oct 28, last Oct 31

2400:00 — 0 calls001:00 — 0 calls02:00 — 0 calls03:00 — 0 calls304:00 — 0 calls05:00 — 0 calls06:00 — 0 calls607:00 — 0 calls08:00 — 0 calls09:00 — 0 calls910:00 — 0 calls11:00 — 0 calls12:00 — 0 calls1213:00 — 0 calls14:00 — 2 calls15:00 — 0 calls1516:00 — 4 calls17:00 — 0 calls18:00 — 0 calls1819:00 — 1 calls20:00 — 0 calls21:00 — 0 calls2122:00 — 0 calls23:00 — 0 callssunrisesunset
Fig. 2. When it calls: all detections by hour of day (today's sunrise and sunset shown).
25Oct 2 — 0 callsOct 3 — 0 callsOct 3Oct 4 — 0 callsOct 5 — 0 callsOct 6 — 0 callsOct 7 — 0 callsOct 8 — 0 callsOct 9 — 0 callsOct 10 — 0 callsOct 10Oct 11 — 0 callsOct 12 — 0 callsOct 13 — 0 callsOct 14 — 0 callsOct 15 — 0 callsOct 16 — 0 callsOct 17 — 0 callsOct 17Oct 18 — 0 callsOct 19 — 0 callsOct 20 — 0 callsOct 21 — 0 callsOct 22 — 0 callsOct 23 — 0 callsOct 24 — 0 callsOct 24Oct 25 — 0 callsOct 26 — 0 callsOct 27 — 0 callsOct 28 — 5 callsOct 29 — 1 callsOct 30 — 0 callsOct 31 — 1 callsOct 31
Fig. 3. Calls per day over the last 30 days.

Recordings

Clearest recording · Oct 28 4:25 pm · 87% sure
spectrogram

From the encyclopedia

The sooty grouse is a species of forest-dwelling grouse native to North America's Pacific Coast Ranges. It is closely related to the dusky grouse, and the two were previously considered a single species, the blue grouse.
From Wikipedia, "Sooty grouse", CC BY-SA 4.0.