What do they 
     
    
   
   
    
     eat .7 
     
    
   
   
    
     BY BRUCE MacLAREN 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Ruffed Grouse, known to many as native partridge, is 
     
     not only handsome, but is also an excellent game bird. I've 
     
     known and loved these birds for something like seventy years. 
     
     During that time one would think I'd know all about their 
     
     eating habits and also their diet. Not so. Just this fall, 
     
    

    
     1987, I learned about two items of their diet that I had not 
     
     known before. 
     
    

    
     It came about this way. Our grandson Ron MacLaren, who 
     
     lives in Santa Maria, California, was with us for the second 
     
     week in October. He is an inveterate hunter and, on his first 
     
     trip after grouse, got his limit of three. As all good hunters 
     
     should, he examined the contents of the birds' crops very 
     
     carefully to discover what they had been eating. Just about 
     
     everything was easily explained - grass shoots and clover 
     
     leaves, buds of trees and shrubs, Rowan berries, grain from 
     
     harvested fields, etc. One item puzzled us and neither he nor 
     
     I could name it. It's a bit difficult to describe but it was 
     
     something like this: one half to three quarters of an inch long, 
     
    

    
     a bit less than a quarter of an inch wide, a bit off—white in colour and 
     
     quite short grained with no sign of seeds. On his next trip out Ron 
     
     brought back a sprig of club—moss with the fruiting body intact. There 
     
     was no doubt at all that this was what we found in the grouse's crop. 
     
     This particular club-moss was Lycopodium inundatum, bog club-moss. On 
     
    

    
     his next trip Ron brought back a sprig of ground pine, Lycopodium obscur— 
     
     ufl, with the top two thirds of the fruiting bodies nipped off, doubtless 
     
     by a grouse. We have several species of club-moss in P.E.I. and as 
     
    

    
     a youngster I was more inclined to call them Creeping Jenny or 
     
    

    
     Foxtail! 
     
    

    
     On one of his trips, Ron brought a complete 
     
     plant of False Lily—of-the—Valley (Maianthemum 
     
     canadense). The fruit is a small, attractive red 
     
     berry. It looked as though grouse might approve 
     
     of it and sure enough, when he opened the crop 
     
     of the bird he had brought, at least two thirds 
     
     of the contents were these small red berries. 
     
    
   
   
    
     coplbm NT 
     
    
   
   
    
     B'E-A'C'H C'L'U'B 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     Lycopodium inundatum 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     Points of View 
     
    
   
   
    
     It always fascinates me how totally different 
     
     we can portray the same subject, depending on 
     
     point of View. Over the last few years, cor- 
     
     morants have received a lot of bad press on 
     
     P.E.I. Terms such as stinky, ugly, and worse 
     
     were used to describe them. And yet, as this 
     
     ad from the New Yorker magazine shows, not 
     
     _ y everyone has that opinion. The Cormorant Beach 
     
     fifigfiflfififflfflflfiflfflflTww Club, in the St. Croix U.S. Virgin Islands 
     
     ucmmuswmmmuws uses the bird's name and silhouette to at- 
     
     “"m”m“”°"”mmw”°“ tract tourists. Perhaps it would be worth 
     
     trying on this Island. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     “WE IEST 5M1 uom II "If Mill“! Vllill Imus-" 
     
     —Andrew Harper's Hndeaway Reoott 
     
    
   
   
    
     C ormoranl strikex a perfect balance between 
     
     seclusion and areessibility with thirty-eight 
     
    
   
   
    
     (300)-372-1323 (212) M‘ 323