Grouse,Grouse,Grouse and more Grouse!

Photos by Penny Arentsen









This, or should I say last Friday's WREN, last WREN for the season was a Grouse and Their Relatives Day. A lot of birds. First we went to the school. When we got there, Penny put us to work at these "Groovin' Grouse" stations.




Station 1 - Identifying Grouse and their Relatives

• I identified the mountain quail, sage grouse, and blue grouse.

Station 2 - Drawing Wings, Beaks, and Feet of Grouse and their Relatives

• I drew pictures of wings, beaks and feet of a grouse, a woodpecker, a raptor and a duck so I could compare them.
  

Station 3- Grouse and Where They Live

• I found out where in Wallowa County the sharp-tail grouse, ruffed grouse, blue grouse, and spruce grouse live. Blue Grouse live in the Wallowa mountains and their higher foothills. Spruce grouse live in the Wallowa mountains. Sharp-tail grouse live in Leap country and Ruffed grouse live in the woods.
  

Station 4- Where did certain kinds of Grouse originate?

• I found out that the Chukar and Gray Partridge originated in Eurasia, the wild turkey and White-tailed Ptarmigan originated in North America and the Ring-necked Pheasant originated in Asia.
  

Station 5- Mating Habits of Grouse

Station 6 - What do Grouse eat?

• Grouse eat: seeds, berries, grasses, leaves, catkins, bugs, pine needles, etc. They eat everything!

After we did the stations, we ate lunch and loaded up in Scooter and the Hit-and-Run mobile. And we were off! After a five-minute drive we stopped by a truck with a bunch of antennas on top. We jumped out of the vans and met Mike Hansen who works for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). Mike was going to teach us how to track sharp-tail grouse by using radio collars. When the collar is on a grouse, it makes slow steady beats. If the grouse stops moving or the collar comes off, then after four hours it changes to fast warning beats. The collars are how they keep track of how many Sharp-tail grouse die and survive every year.

After Mike told us a little bit about the antennae that they use to track the collars, Penny divided us into groups and Mike handed each group a antennae and told us to find the 12 collars he had tossed out into the field. There were four groups and each group found three collars. My group took turns holding the antennae and listening to the beeps from the box that was attached to it.
After we found the collars we caught a signal of a real grouse with a collar on. We walked up on a hill and Mike's dog flushed eight grouse out of hiding in the tall grass. We watched the grouse fly and Mike showed us a Lek. A Lek is a spot on top of a hill that is flat, with no trees, where male grouse get together and show off for the females during mating season.

After we saw the Lek, we ran down the hill, thanked Mike for his time, jumped in the vans, and went back to the school. At the school we did a survey on WREN while we waited for our parents. I loved this Fall's WREN and hope I can do it again in the spring.

Thank you Penny for doing WREN this year and I hope you will do it again next year.

History of Wallowa County

This falls' WREN has been the best season of WREN that I have ever been in! I love it! Today I'm writing about the History of Wallowa County.

First we met at the school and talked about the places we were going to visit and the things we were going to do. Then we jumped into Scooter and the Hit-and-Run mobile and we were off. The first place we went was Leap country, so named that because it was a leap year when it was discovered. We stopped once out there and piled out. We talked about plants, animals, and people who lived there. Then we piled in again and we were off!

The next stop we made was to examine a juvenile Red tail Hawk that was dead. It was totally awesome! Then we drove some more until we reached our lunch stop. We ate our lunch and played a game, and after lunch we headed to a graveyard. We picked partners and Penny gave us each names and a little information about several people who were buried there. My partner and I decided that we would split up check certain graves and come back together to check more. We found another groups' name by accident so they helped us; they found one of ours. Three little toddlers from the same family died in less than five months (twins and their younger brother). It was terrible! The other person we had to find raised 6 kids before she died.

After the graveyard, we hurried to the Joseph History Museum and started a scavenger hunt. I filled out the whole two pages before Penny called us back to the door. She asked us about the questions and we answered them all correctly. One of the things I learned at the museum was that the oldest thing they had was a ammonite. I also saw a ballot box that was attached to a saddle so a rider could go around and collect ballots from farms and homesteads out-of-town. I wanted to stay longer but Penny said that it was time to go. We got back early so we ate the cake that Penny brought us (she is so nice), and played a game. By the time the game was over it was time to go.

Photo by Penny Arentsen

I LOVE WREN!