Aspen and Ruffed Grouse

I wish I'd kept a copy of the hunter survey's that I did for the RGS, but as I recall the top three states for grouse flush rates were always Mn, Wi or Mi, generally in that order. I also recorded, annual consumption of aspen in each state and the same three were also the highest, by quite a margin. Certainly they do exist where there are no aspen, but it certainly is a major player in the grouse domain. I'd noticed in our yard that some winters grouse would feed in our highbush cranberry and other years not at all and bounced this observation off Dr. Gullion and to my surprise he said this is even true with aspen. It happened once during their Cloquet study. The implication is that a total aspen environment isn't always a good thing in winter time; once again, chisel nothing in stone. Of course this was good news for CSF since we peddle winter feed shrubs! You might want to touch base with the Maine Forest Service and find out which biomass units were aspen consumers and ask if they have record of cutting sites that are 2-10 years old which is the window of prime brood habitat in aspen clear cuts. This might get you closer to home than the Millinocket area in your search for prime bird hunting even thought many of these plants are shut down, you have a few years to reap their beneficiation of grouse habitat.

Certainly most of the clear cuts in Maine are much larger than 10 acres, at least the margins of these cuts should offer the best combinations of stand ages important for good habitat.

If you aren't already aware, the best regeneration of aspen comes on sites that are prepped in the dormant season, where all trees, slash and vegetation are removed to allow maximum solar illumination and elevation of soil surface temperature in the spring and early summer. A good regeneration is considered to be 20,000+ stems/acre.

Mike Hradel