"Alder Bog Sunrise"
(24 x 18 in.), $900.00

Just before sunrise on a cool October morning a couple of ruffed grouse have roosted in an alder bush and are enjoying a breakfast of alder catkins, a food that rates high in their diet. Temps stuck in the mid -20s are cool enough to make them fluff their feathers up for extra warmth, so much so that from a distance they looked more like balloons that had been filled with air than grouse. I suspected that the birds possibly roosted there all night as they prefer to be off the ground after dark. Avian predators of grouse, outside of owls, do not normally hunt at night so spending the night off the ground is the answer for grouse. Grouse face many more predators on the ground at night such as wolves, pine martins and fox just to name a few.