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Before us is a marauding stand, three in a clump, five in a row, two apart bushes galore of high bush cranberry’s weighted down branches rife with plump translucent red fruit. Some of the branches and same with the red rounds have on snow caps, the snow runs along the branch tops, dapples the berries, it’s got some serious eye appeal to us. And not just us.
Three absolutely postcard colored feather fluffed ruffed grouse are gorging their way through the shrubs, they peck, they pluck, bodies in balance, oh that one’s gonna fall, but then it doesn’t on swaying thin little fronds.
Lowest bird likes reaching up for its afternoon meal, the upper two have no evident system, they just extend their respective necks, off comes a frozen red and down the hatch it goes, and they waste no time in eating. Its eyes looking, beaks gathering, snow falling when a bird shuffles for more fruit.
The uppermost bird must be filled or its possibly got a brain freeze from eating the cold berries, it simply hops off its perch, no wing beats, puff onto the lightly snow-covered ground. A second repeats the first and then with no fanfare they amble about, both moving downslope, neither looking back for the third bird, third bird not watching the disappearing two.
We linger, last but mostly likely most filled takes wing in the direction of the other two we can no longer see, and probably won’t, the rest of the winter.
- The Trout Whisperer
