Some friends and I were cross-country skiing when we found a large patch of feathers.
They were mostly brown and some were blunt—like turkey feathers, but not as big. What bird were they from?
Under the feathers were more than a hundred tiny specks that looked like extra large wild rice. A closer look showed that they were long, slender buds.
Why so many?
The trail continued through an old red pine forest that was thinned a couple of years ago. Beech trees about three feet tall were taking advantage of the sunlight. They were covered with long, slender buds—the same as those scattered under the feathers.
Back at home, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website confirmed the feathers were from a ruffed grouse.
And all those buds?
When grouse have access to food, they eat it as fast as they can to minimize the time they are exposed to predators. But buds are slow to digest, so these birds have a pouch known as a crop where food is stored for later digestion.
Two-thirds of the mystery are solved. A ruffed grouse with a full crop became a predator’s meal. But who dunnit? Fox? Coyote? Owl?
Raptor expert James Manly at the Skegemog Raptor center says a female Great Horned Owl could carry away a grouse but typically an owl would consume portions of a large prey on the spot leaving more traces. He suggested that a coyote is the more likely predator.
A grouse of about a pound and a half is a right-sized meal for a coyote to carry away.
Without trail cam footage or an eyewitness, circumstantial evidence is all we’ve got to piece together the mystery of who scored a meal at that clearing in the woods.
(Coyote audio by National Park Service MSU Acoustic Atlas/Jennifer Jerrett)