Hunters seeking ruffed grouse in Koochiching and northeastern St. Louis counties are reporting a tougher harvest this season.
The ruffed grouse season opened Sept. 13 and closes Jan. 4.
“If there were a lot of birds, people would see them right away,” said Frank Swendsen, area wildlife supervisor with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in International Falls. “There are some birds, but not a lot of birds.”
Swendsen said the lack of birds is likely due to the cool, wet weather the area experienced in May and June.
“When it’s cold and damp, insect production is down and that can affect chick’s survival,” Swendsen said. “The young can starve to death.”
The lack of insects also affected ducks, he added.
Grouse chicks rely on the high protein offered by insects to grow quickly to adulthood, he explained. Adult grouse eat some insects, but are primarily vegetarian.
In addition, he said chicks can die of exposure to cold, wet weather experienced just after hatch.
“The mother will try to keep them warm by gathering them under her wings, but there can be some mortality,” he said.
Reports on grouse are better south of Koochiching, Swendsen said. Drumming counts this spring in Aitkin, Grand Rapids and Cloquet were a bit higher this spring than in Borderland, he added. DNR staff each spring travel the same routes at the same times of the day, stopping at traditional sites to listen and count the number of birds they hear drumming. Drumming is part of the spring mating ritual in which the male beats his wings very quickly against a log or other object to announce his territory and attract females.
The smaller grouse people are seeing in Borderland this year could be the result of a successful late season nesting.
“They are not a second hatch,” he said. “That’s a common misconception.”
Ruffed grouse never hatch more than two sets of eggs in a year, he explained. If a grouse hen loses her eggs to weather or predators, she, as well as mallards, will sometimes renest in an attempt to have one successful clutch.
Young birds can be identified by a smaller tail, he said. “They leave the nest before their tail is fully developed,” he said. “It’s how you know it’s a late hatch bird.”
Young birds make up the majority of the harvest each year and are usually the first harvested in a season, he added.
“The young birds are dumb birds,” he said. “Birds more than one year old have experienced the hunt and get wary.”
Meanwhile, Swendsen says drumming counts in the area have been stable.
“Theoretically we are on the upswing,” he said of the 10-year population cycle of grouse. “If we have a decent winter and a good hatch we will continue to go up.”
He cautioned that not every 10-year cycle will reach the same peak in population and noted that Borderland is still a year or two from the theoretical peak.