On a summer trip to Fort Providence I spotted a small group of spruce grouse foraging along in the ditch beside the road into town.I was surprised at how close I was able to get to these bird before they flew off into the trees.
A few interesting facts I learned about the Spruce grouse from All about Birds is that The Spruce Grouse has a number of folk names such as fool hen, swamp partridge, spotted grouse, and mus-ko-de’-se, the latter apparently from the Chippewa name for the species.
Spruce Grouse eat mostly the needles of conifers, especially jack pine, lodgepole pine, white spruce, black spruce, and sometimes larch. They usually forage fairly high in trees, where they eat newer needles. Grouse forage on the ground as well, eating growing tips, flowers, and fruit of small plants, mushrooms, as well as small arthropods and terrestrial snails. Females lead chicks through undergrowth, where fungi and insects such as small grasshoppers are important parts of their diet.
A Spruce Grouse can store up to 10% of its body weight in food, in its crop—a pouch between the throat and stomach. This allows the bird to digest the food in safety or during a long, cold night.