Yesterday morning my husband Andy summoned me out to the deck to hear an amazing sound.  After we leaned quietly on the railing for a few moments in the brisk, spring sunshine,  we heard it.   A loud, rapid drumming down in the forest.

     We turned to each other, smiled knowingly, and settled in for some happy waiting.  In less than a minute the silence was again pierced by a powerful drumming on wood.  Again silence.  A few seconds later, we heard more trilling, only much fainter, farther down in the forest.  Brief silence.  Then a loud round of drumming nearby. 

     We both knew that these sounds were not being made by  woodpeckers.  Even the giant pileated woodpecker, who can make wood bits fly with the vigorous pounding of its beak against a dead tree, is not this insistent, not this loud. 

     No, this springtime sound is the grouse.  It’s mating season for these large, shy birds.  Here and there in the woods below us, a male grouse had found a log that suited his purpose, and he was perched there, ready to seek a mate.  Unseen by us humans, he was calling for her, telling her where to find him by intermittently beating his wings rapidly against the log.  His drumming echoed through the forest. 

    Until yesterday I had heard no drumming.  But all day yesterday, I heard it again and again, sometimes near and loud, sometimes distant and faint.  And as I have been writing this morning, in the living room with the door open, I have heard the drumming several times.

     It pleases me to hear the drumming grouse.  And I hope the female grouse are listening.– April Moore 

A male grouse drumming to attract a mate

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 7:52 am and is filed under Celebrating our beautiful Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.