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Show Blue Grouse Instinct" is a word used by biologists to indicate those aspects bf animal behavior which are unlearned. That is, knowledge that an animal is born with as opposed to knowledge that needs to be learned. Birds are famous for their incredi. ble reservoirs of instinctual knowledge. At birth, many birds know the songs, dances, calls and nest building procedures peculiar to their race. Humans seem to have little in the way of instinctual knowledge. Perhaps human mothers instinctively know how to.care for their babies, but for the most part what we know we have learned from other humans.. This should allow us the ability to change the way we do things in response to new or changing information. In contrast, birds behave now much as they must have tens or hundres of thousands of years ago. They cannot readily Change their ways. Our behavior and choices are only as good and true as what we learn and how well we learn it. A bird, relying on instinct, has the advantage and birthright of knowing" what is right and proper. Grouse are the wild chickens" of our western mountains. Two species, the blue and the roughed grouse, are still common in Utah while the larger sage grouse has become rather scarce. By quietly walking through the woods, one can often be spectator to the courtship displays of both blue and roughed grouse. For those less inclined to stealth the drumming" of both species is one of the most distinct sounds of the spring forest The chumming of the roughed grouse starts, like a slow, deep drum, so deep and earthbound as to seem like the throbbing of ones own veins. The beats quicken to a roll and then disappear. The larger blue grouse has a single deep tunk." Males of both species ruffle their neck feathers, perk their tails, strut and dance as part of then courtship displays. In the autumn, after the young of the year grouse have grown, both birds are hunted for their white and taity flesh. In the winter; blue grouse defy standard migration patterns by moving higher into the mountains, into the teeth of winter. Here they survive on evergreeii needles.' During deep freezeSi grouse will often bury themselves in the snow and thus deep through the seasbnt colder Mans, . . . |