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By Shirley Grenoble
For the Mirror
As I drove my old car down a well-used dirt road recently, I bumped into one of my favorite woodsy scenarios: one of Pennsylvania's state birds, the Ruffed Grouse, was strutting on the edge of the dirt road.
His ruff (the neck feathers) was all bunched up, with a seemingly non-caring hen grouse a bit ahead of him. I stopped the car and just watched because it is a rare sight to see. Eventually, they wandered out of sight but so thankful was I to have seen this wondrous scenario.
Another seldom-seen sight in the woods is to actually see a male grouse drumming his wings on a fallen log. What a noise it makes. Lots of folks will say that a grouse drumming actually sounds like a farmer trying to get his tractor started. That a pretty good description. I have known many a good outdoors writer who tried to get close enough to a grouse's drumming log to snap photos but was never able to accomplish it.
Local outdoorsman Bill Carter once ran into a grouse in the woods that seemed already tamed. This bird jumped up on the open car window and sat there, letting you shoot photo after photo, every time
Carter would go to that area and the bird would be there. Puzzling it was as to where he came from or how he got so domesticated. Many of Carter's friends were privileged to see this unusual Ruffed Grouse but none of us ever solved the mystery.
It's that time of year
This is the time to drive around looking for wildlife in fields.
It seems so easy for them to be targets in the summer but the fact is that all wildlife changes its habitat according to food sources.
The wildlife you see are not sitting around on mushrooms singing happy little songs. Those are Disney fantasies.
In fact, every thing in the woods has something sneaking up on it and something that it is sneaking up on,too. Somehow it all evens out in the end.
And one more thing
Have you gotten your new hunting license yet?
The first round of applications for antlerless licenses is over but the second round will start on Monday, Aug. 1.