A Bird in the Hand ...

Back in March of this year I had a couple of postings of a "Roadside Grouse" that would wait along Joyce Road and pose for pictures. Soon after I posted the story on the grouse I stopped seeing the bird and thought it had met with an accident. Yesterday, my son Chuck and his fiancée, Nikki, returned to our house after a walk and told us of being attacked by a grouse. After showing us pictures of the grouse attack my first thought was the "Roadside Grouse".

This morning I proceeded to look for the "attack" grouse in the area where it was last seen. After about 45 minutes of searching I detected some movement in a brushy area. To my surprise, a grouse came out of the brush and started walking towards me.



At first the grouse started to circle me and stayed 10 to 15 feet away. Within a few minutes the grouse was only a couple of feet away and I had to put my camera in macro close-up mode to take pictures.



For the next hour the grouse would charge and peck at me in some sort of mock battle. I played along with the fight and the more I charged the grouse, the closer it got. A photo of the grouse standing on my leg.



At one point I was able to catch and hold the grouse. I had assumed the grouse would run away after being held, but it returned for more fighting and was caught three more times.



After an hour of "grouse fighting" I got up and started to walk back to our house. The grouse followed me for the next couple hundred feet until I started to walk faster. Several hours later I returned to the same spot with our son Matt and his girlfriend, the grouse was ready for more "fun and games".