Selection and Use of Drumming Sites by Male Ruffed Grouse

Abstract

SINCE the spring of 1956, the density, distribution, and drumming behavior of male Ruffed Grouse (Banasa umbellus) have been under investigation on the Cloquet Forest Research Center, a facility of the University of School of Forestry, about 20 miles west of Duluth, Minnesota. From 1931 to 1934, Ralph T. King carried out one of the first intensive research studies of Ruffed Grouse on this same area. Although few of King's findings have reached publication (King, 1937), many of his original data are available at Cloquet and have enhanced our understanding of the factors influencing the current grouse population. There have been many studies of the drumming of male Ruffed Grouse, but little seems to have been reported concerning either the historical use of sites or the interactions between male grouse. Bent (1932: 142), Allen (1934), Fisher (1939), Graham (1940), Bump et at. (1947: 274), Frank (1947), Hardy (1950), C. D. Fowle (An analysis of the territorial behavior of the Ruffed Grouse [Bonasa umbellus (L.)], Ph. D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1953), Hungerford (1953), Petraborg et al. (1953), Dorney et at. (1958), R. L. Eng (A study of the ecology of male Ruffed Grouse [Bonasa umbellus L.] on the Cloquet Forest Research Center, Minnesota, Ph. D. dissertation, University of 1959), Ammann and Ryel (1963), and Palmer (1963) all have reported upon various aspects of drumming behavior, some from the life history or behavioral viewpoint, and others by using it as a tool for learning more about the abundance or longevity of these grouse. The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of specific drumming sites (and the grouse using them) from a historical viewpoint and, based on Cloquet examples, to point out some behavioral traits which may be used as a valid basis for studying grouse populations and those which can be misinterpreted, resulting in incorrect assumptions concerning Ruffed Grouse population densities, longevity, and age composition. Information on these topics should be useful to wildlife biologists exploiting drumming behavior as a method of measuring changes in population levels, either as a result of natural environmental influences or in response to planned or accidental manipulation of grouse habitat (see also Gullion, 1966). This study has been one phase of a broader study designed to determine the influence of forestry management practices on a Ruffed Grouse