<p>Encountered on a trail, this Franklin's grouse reacts to a camera as members of his species typically do: he poses.</p>

This photo of a male spruce grouse taken in the Eagle Cap Wilderness is also called a Franklins grouse and a fool hen by our early settlers because they had no fear of humans. Even today, they just hop up on a limb when hikers encounter them on the trail. One can almost kill them with a stick. However, that would be illegal as they are a protected species. Sometimes hunters are given a citation when they kill them thinking they are blue grouse.

I have frequently seen them in the trail with their newly born chicks and when the mother gives a danger signal they all dive for cover and are almost impossible to see. But the mother spruce grouse just goes into a protective mode and doesnt fly away.

These grouse have many enemies that prey on them including bobcats, coyotes, goshawks and great-horned owls. They depend on dense cover and protective coloration for their survival. I have never seen spruce grouse in flocks like blue grouse that tend to gather together frequently.

Like all of the grouse family, the male spruce grouse do their best to strut and fan out their plumage when they try to attract a mate. And like the males of many other game birds, they contribute very little to raising or protecting their young. (The only game birds that I know about where the males help in protecting their young are valley quail where the roosters sit atop a fence post doing sentry duty while their hens and chicks are busy catching insects in the grass.)

Most of the time when I have seen spruce grouse, I have been on horseback and they will hardly get out of the trail for even such a large animal as a horse. I think its due to their living in such remote habitats that they very seldom come in contact with humans or their domestic animals.

Like most of the grouse family, they raise their chicks on insects, but when they mature they feed mostly on berries and even evergreen needles and buds. So if you go into the less traveled trails in the Eagle Cap, be sure to have your camera. They will quite often pose for their picture, as the male grouse in this photo did.