Ruffed Grouse Drumming
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.พ. 2010
- In the spring, male Ruffed Grouse perch on fallen logs and make a low-pitched drumming sound by opening and closing their wings in rapid succession. The thumping starts slow but quickly gains in speed, and the rapidly beating wings turn into a complete blur when the drumroll reaches its peak.
One might think the thumps are produced by the beating of the wings against the chest, but in actuality the thumps are little sonic booms created as air suddenly fills a vacuum made when the wings are thrust outward from the breast.
Check out our blog post about this subject at the musicofnature.org web site: www.musicofnature.org/home/ruf...
video and sounds © 2010 Lang Elliott & Bob McGuire
I heard this sound while camping. The noise was so low it was almost inaudible. The sound seemed to be coming from the ground and I thought it was some type of seismic event. I never would have suspected it was bird! Awesome footage! and thanks for solving this mystery
I thought the exact same thing!! I thought there was volcanic activity or something! What a relief to know what it is!
Camping where? 😆😆
All this time (a few years now) I felt so sorry for my neighbour trying to start up his old lawnmower. I wanted to go over many times to help him fix it but now I know exactly what I've been hearing way back in the forest. Thanks man
It’s crazy how when you’re close to it you can feel the drumming in your chest as well
First time I heard it in the woods I thought it was pretty cool
Could people thinking Sasquatch tree-thumping is actually the grouse, at least the slow beats? Many noises in the forest could be attributed to 'normal' animals, esp in the dead of night where everything seems amplified. The screech owl for instance has an immense scream that people might think it something 'unnatural' or a dying woman. Not to cast aspersions on the reality of Bigfoot (there's something out there), but on many occasions it is likely mistaken identity.
I heard this probably too close and felt like it was my heart beating out of my chest!! So surreal experience
The feeling you get from it is unreal. Feels like it’s inside your head
Exactly!
It literally feels like it's my heartbeat inside my head
@@seankoenigs21omg yes. When I first heard it I thought somehow it was my heartbeat speeding up. It was so strange I thought I was crazy for a second
Heard this in the woods at dusk and it was so deep that it felt like a pressure on my eardrums instead of an actual noise. Spooky and beautiful! Thanks for uploading, now i know for sure what I heard
I heard it camping in the night, I thought it sounded like a generator trying to be started up.
Yeah I just heard it a few times at work I do conservation stuff and I knew it was a bird from my ecology class but the sound more felt like it was my heartbeat doing weird impossible patterns
I literally just heard this in my woods. Second night sleeping here and I was like what the what?? It’s low but strong.
I’m amazed this is a bird. When you hear it in the woods it has such a deep base sound. It feels like it’s coming from the ground. Magnificent! Thank you!
First time I heard it out in the woods here, I thought "why does some guy keep trying to start his Harley over and over?". I figured it out after a bit. Flushed 4 of them out hiking this afternoon. The first one of the day always gets the heart racing a bit!
PureCountry045 I thought it was a neighbors propane regulator lol. So nice to find out it’s not that!!
That's exactly what I thought it was, too. I thought somebody was starting up a motorcycle. The neighbor explained to me what the sound was.
i was hunting in some over populated bear country, griz and blackies . walking out at last light where blue is black and its hard to make out shapes in the trees. thats when a grouse jumped and beat its wings so loud i thought it was a bear roaring and as fast at the happened it hit me in the chest. i screamed like a girl and no one ever let me live it down in camp hahhaha they sure do get the heart a racing when they do that.
I also thought it sounded like someone trying to start a tractor far away!
It does🤠
Such cool birds! Low numbers now in Upstate NY. Nice vid!
After moving to Maine and hearing this for the first time, I thought one of my farmer neighbors was trying to start some kind of spring time farming machine, but it kept repeating. I got suspicious, did some Internet searching, and ended up at this video which is EXACTLY the sound I was hearing. Thanks!
My dad and I hear this everywhere we hike. Could never figure out what it was, until I was determined to figure it out. Now I know! It's such a low sound and hard to describe. So cool though!
First time i heard one of this in the wild I was hiking and bent over tying my shoe, and i thought to my self " Please tell me that is not my heart" It has no direction on sound it just is everywhere you can hear it for miles !
In 2019 I hiked the Appalachian Trail, I would hear this for about the first third. The sound is so deep that at first I thought it was coming from inside, like my own heart or cochlea messing up.
Yes! The first time I heard it, I thought it was my heartbeat
I've taken three hikes in the woods over the last couple of weeks and keep hearing this noise. Today I was with my wife and stopped specifically to listen for it. We heard it again, so I figured I needed to find out what it was. Thanks for the video.
God bless and I have to say “What An Amazing God that we served”.His Most Wonderful , Spenderous Creation Of All Time!What A Wonderful God That He Is? ❤
Moved up north, and i heard them all day! I couldnt beleive the sound. Thought it was a vehicle trying to start, or a basketball!
I heard these guys throughout my AT thru hike. Took me a couple of months in before someone told me what it was. Prior to, I thought it might be the stress of a bending tree. Thanks for posting.
wow - beautiful and amazing - another 'Bird of Paradise' - Incredibly his head barely moves.
Today was the first time I heard one of these guys. It’s more felt than heard.
I can agree with you, about a year ago I experienced this and it almost feels as if it’s your heart just pacing faster and faster
I always have this one Grouse nearby me every November in a certain Deer stand. It's pretty endearing, cute, and funny when this guy finds a log he likes and starts drumming like crazy. It's almost like music!
I hear this near my house every spring. Drives me crazy! I can more feel it than hear it.
I was hunting for ruffed grouse yesterday and every minute, over five ruffed grouse started drumming and scared the shit out of me because I thought it was hearing my heart beating real fast but it was them doing a summing call and it was amazing to hear them
Incredible footage!!!
I got to experience this from 50ft away when I was a teenager turkey hunting in the southern appalachians. For over a half hour I remained frozen against an oak tree while he displayed and drummed. I thank God for one of the most moving experiences I have ever had in the outdoors. Truly the King of the Upland Birds, with an absolutely amazing life cycle and habits. It saddens me that their populations have collapsed where I live.
Thank you for sharing your art with us!
Love that sound when I'm in a deer stand. I find it relaxing
redneck31082 ‘!
the video quality is amazing, considering this was 9 years ago.
Also the fact they got to record something that not many will see
Really??? 9 years ago we weren’t in the dark ages
@@teresahaugen3974 how many years at least u want then?
11
@@Tantemify HD video was becoming popular like 20 years ago in professional gear, cell phone video was still shoddy/potato quality in that era, but real cameras with amazing lenses (like what Lang is clearly using) still looked really nice.
so now I know what that sound is coming from...finally
Went for a long hike in Sleeping Giant provincial park and heard this very very low grumble in the woods. It was quite unsettling. Im glad I found this video.
Let's hear it for Thunder Bay, Ontario! 👍🏼🇨🇦😎
This is beautifully shot and edited, thank you for sharing :)
Fr Joseph McGilloway be better if it had real sounds
The quality of this video is outstanding! Thank you for sharing!
Flawlessly captured.. thank you for sharing..
What an excellent capture
Kept hearing this last night camping, we could not figure out what in the world it was! Went for a little hike and then saw a grouse doing this!
This is beautifully photographed
Wow. Brilliant footage. 2mins in my favourite
Beautiful video of the drumming! When I was in my early teens back in the 80's, we had several grouse. I would hear that noise and I thought someone was trying to start a tractor. Lol It wasn't long before some elder told me what it really was. Lol I miss those days. I haven't heard a Grouse drum in many years around here in Ky
When I first heard drumming grouse in the woods after moving to an old farmhouse in the Oregon Mountains the sound really carried in the quiet and isolation. I thought someone was trying to start a balky chainsaw over and over until I asked my dear neighbor in her sixties who had lived up there for forty years! 💕😃
Absolutely gorgeous camera work!
I was reading a book of Iriquois folk tales and one was about partidges drumming. I was confused as I thought that was an Old World bird, but looking on here it seems like some people call grouses partridges. I'm in Missouri and didn't know they did this. To me it sounds like a prop plane trying to start up! Very handsome dinosaur.
I'm a little late finding this video. What a "Fantastic" job catching this on film, so crisp, and from all angles. Simply beautiful. I hear them all the time here in NB in the spring. But I have never taken the time to try and get it on video. This spring I am going to set up one of my trail cameras on a drumming log as well, and hopefully catch one in the act. A funny grouse story...way back in the early 80.s just after my wife and I were married. She was a city girl. We were trout fishing in a small brook. I was a few yards down stream, when I heard my wife screaming like crazy! My first thought was of course a black bear.. since there were always a few along the brook. I ran in her direction thinking of how I would fight a bear with a fishing rod. But when I got to her she was still hysterical...but I didn't see anything else. She pointed to the tall grass and bushes directly in front of her, and said.. its right there! And I finally caught a glimpse of a ruffed grouse with its tail and wings all fanned out. We were obviously very close to either a males drumming log, of more likely a hens nest. We didn't want to agitate it any more, so went back to fishing. We still recall that day every now and then. And this video brought it back for me. Thanks for a great video! 😊👍
Great video, I kept hearing this thudding/drumming 'nearly running' engine noise anytime I went out to the backyard on cold nights. I did see a few out there in the daytime but would never have put that sound with this animal. Thanks
I heard this sound while taking photos during a trail walk. I got scared and thought that it’s someone’s heart beat ( like that of ghosts in horror movies). OMG, I finally found the source😮😂😅
When hiking the SHT, I really thought I was hearing a train or something. It's so deep you feel it more than hear it
Thank you for this beautiful video. I enjoyed the Grouse, Crow, Woodpecker, and other members of the chorus. :)
Love that sound. Reminds me of my Dad and Opa saying it was the neighbour trying to start his old John Deere tractor in the bush.
This is amazing. Birds never cease to amaze me. Coolest animals ever.
all my life i've wondered what that noise was... i never considered a grouse. but that's it right there, wow.
the drummers of nature ....
It’s crazy that their head stays perfectly still the whole time
fantastic footage!!
Heard this bidd at camp, and it was a deep yet loud sound, and had no idea what it was so it freaked everyone out until someone was like yep that's a grouse
One of my favorite things about the spring woods! This is beautiful. Thank you.
I heard it today while hiking in a very remote area I freaked out.
My parents lived in Bland Virginia and I’d spend a lot of time in the forest there looking for bones and exploring. I’d always hear this motor sound like a generator. I immediately thought it was someone cooking moonshine or meth in the woods. When I’d walk towards this motor sound there’d always be nothing there and it would stop. It was the strangest thing. This happened at least six times. So a few years later I get the idea to Google “strange motor sound in woods” and this bird called a grouse kept coming up so I TH-cam searched it and that was the sound!!! I never would have thought it was a bird because the only thing it sounded like was man-made in everything I knew about nature at the time. So fascinating and cool to have my years long mystery final solved. And I learned I wasn’t crazy and the sound was very much real. Lol
Yes ... sounds like an old one-cylinder engine starting up in the distance, but then fizzling out.
My god man, how do you get these shots?? Very nice work!
Amazing video; well done!! And LOVE the crow in the background.
Thank you for sharing...a lot of folks having never heard this...used to love it back when I lived in the Appalachians during the “busier” season of their doing their “beating” (as we referred to it).
My late father was tone deaf to this sound and had to completely depend on visually spotting them in flight as we hunted them when I was a kid.
Looking back, I realize how impressive that was, seeing as he was still successful with even less time for “bagging” them from his lacking the early warning signal of this same sound during their flight before they quickly disappeared into the cover of mountain undergrowth, especially laurel...which was the real challenge(thus draw)of hunting them.
🔥☯️🔥
Thank you for posting this vid. Jumped a bird a while back whilst hunting and it startled me because the sound of its flight was so loud. Thought it might have been a grouse. I wasn't very familiar with the species. The sound of its flight definitely sounded just like this. Surprisingly Loud!
That's cool I like that sound
Beautiful video! For years I wondered what those thumping noises in the Sierra were. They are so hard to see it's amazing you got this footage. I never see them until I practically step on them.
When you hunt them you start seeing them easier. They taste much better than chicken and much more healthier, although I very much dislike dispatching them, they're really just harmless birds trying to survive.
I want this guy for my metal band. :)
B
Absolutely amazing footage!
Amazing video. Living in a wooded area I hear this constantly and couldn't figure it out! With some research it all makes sense now!
Fantastic video! Really awesome videography!!
Awesome video!!
Its a form of advert to other birds like "hey this is my territory".
Nature is truly amazing and often magical. I love it so! Thank you.
Plus partridge are delicious
So cool
Oh my god! What kind of camcorder opr camera did you use for these awesome videos? Congratulations, there's lot of work with a video like this.
Thank you so much! I have heard this sound for 2 days, exactly this sound! It's been a mystery! It was so precise each time I thought something was banging against my house, yet it seemed too distant for that. Not annoying but rather frustrating because I couldn't figure it out. It's a very low frequency and seems to go through me to the point I checked my heart beat lol Thanks for this video. Nature is so fascinating!
Thank you for this vid, have always wanted to see this, and finally I have! You captured it perfectly!
Experiencing this in the woods is amazing.
darn, not the bird I was looking for but its really cool. I remember hearing about one way back about a bird that makes this very low thump sound.
Four Side Gaming
These aren’t the birds you’re looking for.
Move along now.
Damn Jedi mind tricks
If you're near marshy woods, and it's a "glug...glug" sound, it might be a bittern! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Incredible capture! Thank you for sharing.
shoutouts to all the folks that, like me, thought someone was starting a quad in the bush as a kid.
So wonderful; thank you!
Whenever I hear this I always think a four wheeler is coming from somewhere
wow.....stunning
Me and my bf thought we were crazy lol. It sounded to us as if somebody dropped a basketball and it was getting slower if that makes sense lol. It really freaked me out! I never thought about searching it till now haha. I think this might be it!
It's truly amazing some of the noises birds can put out. Thanks so much for this video. Now that so few people explore the woods, we need videos like this to educate us. Speaking of which, anyone know what makes the noise at 1:51, sort of like rapid wood knocking? I'm guessing a frog? It's repeated more than once on this video.
Sounds like a woodpecker attempting (and failing) to peck bugs from a hardwood.
@@tinkandtory I actually think it might be a sapsucker given the pattern of the drumming
Love this!! Thank you for posting this amazing video 😊
Like. Great video!
amazing captures, and your website is awesome. thank you
Heard this all the time hunting and couldn't figure out what it was. Now I know that's just a Grouse!
Sounds like an old Rolls-Royce Merlin trying to start.
Wonderful great quality video. Thank you. 👍🏼🎥
This is so amazing 😍
Very cool!
Sounds like a starting helicopter. Wonderful channel, Elliot.
a beautiful video
When I’m in the woods I always wondered what that noise was lol. Now I know
IT'S GOOD TO BE BACK IN BOSTON, YEAYUH!
its also a courtship advetisement.
Very good 👍
People say the bird sounds like an engine but the engine is still a relatively new device for humans. Could you imagine someone from the Middle Ages hearing this for the first time? Must’ve been so scary having nothing to base the noise off of
Amazing.....
Hear this everyday multiple times, thought it has been someone trying to start up a atv etc. Only now finding out its grouse
Ernest Thompson Seton's book "Wild Animals I have known" brought me here.
I was brought by "biological exuberance"
You might also like his "Book of Woodcraft," if you can find it! ಠಿ_ಠ
That moment you finally find out what that sound is you’ve been hearing all year.
First time I heard this as a kid, thought I was having a heart attack 😭
and this my friends , is the noise of my state's state bird.
I thought it was aliens when i was in the mountains hahahahaha