Date July 9, 2024
Location Katmai National Park, AK
We took the bus tour to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. The park ranger that came along asked us to be on the lookout for Snowshoe Hares and Spruce Grouse, which were often found on the dirt road. A count was made on every bus tour for scientific research purposes -- basically monitoring the populations. I was very excited to hear this, of course, because I didn't have any species of grouse on my life list, and I was certainly keen on getting one on my Alaska trip. This would be like shooting fish in a barrel, so to speak.
While we saw dozens of hares during the entire ride up, we didn't see any grouse for quite some time. I was starting to wonder if I was going to be very unlucky. But finally towards the end of the trip out was saw a mama grouse with a few chicks, scrambling off the road as the bus approached. We got very good looks at the chicks, which had managed to fly up into trees about even with the bus windows.
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