Gulls and Grouse

We frequently see Gulls sitting spread out across farm fields, in large widely spaced flocks.  We rarely see, though we regularly hear, Ruffed Grouse.

I saw this large flock of Gulls on a harvested hayfield, just yesterday.  As I drove up and poked the camera out the window they were almost all sitting.  I keep wanting to call them 'Seagulls', but that's only a colloquial name; these were either Ring-billed or Herring Gulls, more likely the former according to eBird records for Grey County, but they were too far to tell without binoculars.

This was quite a large flock.  They didn't look as if they were feeding, just resting.  Sometimes we see them spread out down a field behind a farmer ploughing, presumably eating the turned up worms.

I was able to get a couple of pictures out the window, and then from behind the car, but once I stopped out in the open, the ones close to me rose and flew in a big circle to land further away.  Have you ever wondered how a large flock of birds coordinates their flying to move as a group so gracefully?  They're perhaps our most common bird around here in terms of numbers.

The Ruffed Grouse is another story.  We rarely see them except as an exploding shadow when you surprise one walking through the woods.  We do hear the drumming males in the spring.  But this one just sat there while we stopped 10 feet away and didn't even ruffle its feathers.  I didn't have the camera, but we were almost home, so we went home, I got the camera and returned.

It was still sitting there!  It even let me get out of the car to take a picture and didn't move a muscle.  But I moved one step off the road closer, and it burst into flight straight for the woods - and a milli-second behind it a second bird burst out of the grass at my feet and followed it.  This bird had been guarding the female sitting on the nest.  I left promptly, not to disturb it more.  You can see the crest on top of the head on this bird, the red phase of the Ruffed Grouse.  But its named for the feathers around its neck which can spread out to create quite a 'ruff', though I've never see that.

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