WHAT DO PARTRIDGE EAT?

BIRD HUNTERS AND DEER HUNTERS CO-OPERATE
By: Ray Hansen

One of the wonderful things I get to observe from a treestand while waiting for a deer to pass within range is other wildlife going about its normal daily routine. Here in Michigan the small game season opens September 15th each year, and that includes Ruffed Grouse. Hunters who hit the woods with pointing dogs each fall call these gamebirds Partridge, and I frequently exchange information with a handful of these guys.

They want to know where I have seen birds, and I want to know where they are seeing deer. And since I simply watch Partridge walking through the woods without shooting them – I’m hunting deer after October 1st – I get to see them feeding. Hunters with dogs never get this chance because the dog points the bird and the hunter moves in to flush it and hope for a clear shot as the partridge rockets away. In the heavy forest cover found hereabouts, the Partridge wins this contest most of the time.

Anyway, from my treestand I have seen these birds consume a variety of foods including leaves from apple trees, buds from the branch tips of aspen (poplar) trees, clover, wintergreen berries, small leaves from fruits like wild strawberry plants, and a small, round black berry that I believe is hackberry.

I have also watched them pick at apples when I hunt near wild apple trees, and I think they catch beetles or grasshoppers at times. I’ve watched them bite and peck in grassy areas and I’m not sure if they chasing bugs or eating the grass itself. When near oaks, I’ve seen them grab acorns but I can’t imagine how they could swallow one. Maybe they target the smaller acorns.

Of all these grouse treats, I have most commonly seen them forage on apple and aspen leaves or the buds from these trees. I often advise grouse hunters to look for places where these trees grow close to a water source, since these spots typically provide gamebirds with all their necessities in a setting where heavier cover offers them security.

Places where wood cutting has taken place two to five years ago are potentially great spots. Here in the Upper Peninsula, poplar (aspen) starts refilling the cutover tracts the following year. Small trees with tender new buds grow in profusion. In addition, the left over branches and brush are usually piled throughout the cut area and grouse use these brushpiles as cover.

Deer also like these “second growth” spots as they are called. I recall hunting near Channing, Michigan one year when I put up a treestand in older growth forest right long the edge of a cut area. In the course of a five-day hunt, two of us tagged bucks thanks to bird hunters.

As the hunters put out their dogs on the edge of the cut nearest the old logging road, deer would move out ahead of the pointers. In nearly every case, the deer would simply circle back through the older timber – and sometimes past my stand – to get behind the bird hunters. The guys looking for partridge often failed to see the deer, or didn’t care because they were not hunting deer. They sure did me a favor though. It made my hunting a lot easier!

Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008