{"id":29730,"date":"2020-11-25T14:43:14","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T22:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=29730"},"modified":"2020-11-25T14:43:14","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T22:43:14","slug":"grouse-mismatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=29730","title":{"rendered":"Grouse mismatch"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I have gently poked fun at the Ruffed Grouse a few times because it always behaves as if it is well camouflaged in the brush. So, even when it is on snow<\/a> or gravel<\/a>, it walks very slowly feigning that its plumage is nothing but a shifting pattern of dappled sunlight in the undergrowth.<\/p>\n

However, its unchanging behaviour is not its only ineptitude when it comes to camouflage. It also has its plumage to deal with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Ruffed Grouse comes in a few different colour morphs (that is, colour forms), but the two primary ones are: grey (found primarily in the north), red (found primarily in the south). The grey seems to be best adapted to hiding in snow; the red seems best adapted to hiding in foliage.\u00a0 We get both forms here. But, what is a red-morph Ruffed Grouse to do when it encounters snow? If a coyote appears, it has just lost the lottery. And what is a grey-morph Ruffed Grouse to do when it is amidst leaves. It is, alas, irreconcilably visible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The latter was the case this week when our local grey-morph Ruffed Grouse attempted to hide amidst the fall foliage — alas, it was starkly visible.\u00a0It is interesting that the grouse has as much trouble adapting its plumage as it does adapting its behaviour.<\/p>\n

A grey-morph grouse stands out amidst the fall foliage, but it will blend better come winter.
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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I have gently poked fun at the Ruffed Grouse a few times because it always behaves as if it is well camouflaged in the brush. So, even when it is on snow or gravel, it walks very slowly feigning … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29730"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29741,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29730\/revisions\/29741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}