Upland Game Bird High Cycles and Hunters

by Brad Fenson

Sharpies are one of the most adaptable game birds I’ve ever found. I’ve run into them on the barrens in the arctic, alpine regions of the mountains, burn areas in spruce and boreal forest, as well as parkland and prairie habitats. They are amazing and adapt well to wherever there is native habitat in good condition.

Walking the open parkland between bluffs of wild buffaloberry patches the birds would catch me off guard with their fast flush. Gently pushing 10 or 12 bushes without seeing a bird can make a hunter complacent and when you do get a flush, it sends you into a flurry of excitement to shoulder the shotgun and find the bird. I think the sharptail have adapted well to their interspersed habitats and avoid predators in the same manner which they elude hunters. Hunting sharp-tailed grouse means walking lots of miles with the hopes of flushing birds within shotgun range. It is an exceptionally fun way to spend a day in the field with some friends and taking a few birds home is simply a bonus.

Hunting with a group of three friends, and after pushing miles of cover from early morning to late evening, we all had a couple of birds to show for our effort. It was late in the season, and if we had been able to get out the opening week, our success rate would have been much higher. There were lots of birds and lots of opportunity for everyone. The high number of birds allowed us to be successful, even after the birds had been hunted hard for close to a month. 

High upland game bird cycles can be correlated to outstanding wing shooting opportunities. From watching sharp-tailed grouse dance on their leks in the spring to hunting ruffed grouse throughout their native habitats, paying attention to the birds year-round will provide valuable insight for hunters wanting to be more successful.

When a buddy of mine called last spring to tell me about the respectable number of ruffed grouse he was encountering on their drumming logs I just had to go out and see. Unlike the sharptail, ruffed grouse are solitary birds that drum their wings against their breast in a melodious rhythm that attracts females. There is no lek, and I’ve never witnessed a fight amongst rival males. The birds do seek out mature forest where some of the old growth trees have died and blown down, providing ideal drumming logs, which in turn helps resonate the sound through the forest and elevate the bird to watch for danger.

Using my spring knowledge, I headed for my favourite tract of boreal forest in the hopes of finding some of the plump, white meat birds that grace a table like no other native grouse species. The afternoon sun was warm and most of the yellow aspen and birch leaves had already fallen to the ground. I prefer to hunt ruffies with the leaves on the ground as I normally hear them walking on the crunchy understory long before I see them. It seemed like the perfect day to be out in the woods, and although I didn’t expect to see many birds till later in the afternoon, I was surprised to flush a pair within the first 50 meters of leaving the truck.

With two birds in the bag, I felt confident that the day was going to be a great one. I wasn’t disappointed. I must have picked the best series of cut lines to hunt from anywhere these birds call home. Regular flushes of two to four birds had my heart racing with excitement as I eagerly pushed on down the trail. If there was anyone in the remote location where I was hunting, they’d have thought I set up a clay target thrower and was shooting with regularity as I practiced my skills. In reality, it was probably the quickest ruffed grouse hunt of my life flushing more than 30 birds in an hour and collecting a full limit in about the same time.

Most grouse and game bird populations are thought to cycle, meaning there are lean years followed by years with exceptional populations. Some hunters may be surprised, in fact, that most upland game birds in Canada are not surveyed. Upland birds are difficult to manage, with volatile populations that can increase or decline in short periods of time. For example, biologists have discovered that grouse species suffer natural mortality rates as high as 70 to 90 per cent in a single year. Consequently, the information collected on a spring survey would not be useful after six months due to the significant population changes that can occur.

While upland birds suffer very high natural mortality, the birds themselves counter the problem with extremely high production rates. This in turn creates a large surplus of birds that can be taken without having any impact on the overall population; bag limits and seasons are set to harvest birds that would be lost anyway within the given.

Upland game bird populations rely on the law of diminishing returns to survive. And, hunters will respond to bird numbers and hunt according to the probability of their success. When there are lots of birds around there will be high hunter effort, and when the bird numbers are low, hunters will exert less effort. Habitat is the key to maintaining healthy bird numbers. Good habitat allows for a better chance of surviving the winter and, as a result, a surplus of birds for hunters.