Ruffed Grouse Society born in Virginia 50 years ago this week

By Bill Cochran


    Fifty years ago, the Ruffed Grouse Society dispatched its first newsletter with a message from its editor, Seybert Beverage, one of the three Virginians who founded the organization.

“Your editor feels that as long as the ruffed grouse survives, then America will survive,” Beverage wrote.

That was a prophetic observation. The ruffed grouse population has taken a nosedive in Virginia. Many would argue that America also is on a downward path.

“That was a good line,” Bruce Richardson told me when I was writing a feature on the organization’s 25th anniversary. Richardson really was the only grouse hunter amount the trio of founders. They all lived in Monterey, a scenic village in the center of mountainous Highland County, where forested ridges and old farms offered habitat for the noble grouse.

Richardson was in the real estate and trout growing business. He was born in Clifton Forge and served as assistant manager and sports director of the posh Homestead in Hot Springs. Later he operated the Thomas Jefferson Inn in Charlottesville. Tiring of the hotel business and feeling the lure of the mountains, he moved to Monterey.

Beverage, a lawyer and soon to be district judge, was an unlikely candidate to form an organization around a bird that favors the steepest ridges and thickest thorn-tree swales. He’d never hunted grouse. The victim of polio as a child, he was confined to a wheelchair. That didn’t keep him from being vice president of his law class at the University of Virginia. He was an avid reader and amateur ornithologist.
The third man was Dixie L. Shumate Jr., a knowledgeable fisheries biologist who’s idea of a good time did not include tripping over fox grape vines in pursuit of an illusive game bird. Richardson was convinced that trout and grouse had a lot in common. Both were things of beauty and grace; both required quality habitat; both were capable of affording a sportsman heart-pounding thrills. Shumate would have little problem transcending from trout to grouse, and playing a significant role in the new organization.

The three friends gathered in Beverage’s law office one day and after conducting some business. Richardson started talking about grouse, and the fact that the habitat in Highland and Bath County didn’t hold as many birds as it once did.

Read The Rest Of The Roanoke Times Article

400-acre habitat to honor Howard birder

Scrubby Garrett terrain will preserve woodcock, Aelred Geis' legacy of determination

By Candus Thomson, The Baltimore Sun

Aelred Geis tried to make the world better for birds and people, in that order.

He studied ways to coax birds back into urban areas, helped persuade Jim Rouse to set aside 1,000 acres of prime Howard County real estate for a nature preserve, turned his Clarksville farm into a wildlife sanctuary and not only built a better bird feeder, but also filled it with superior seed that he developed.
Geis could be loud and confrontational with a touch of arrogance when the circumstances warranted it, his friends fondly remember.

Before his death in 2007 at age 78, he put all those traits to work pestering state officials into helping restore the woodcock, a shy woodland bird that once filled Maryland's fields and skies and delighted springtime birders with its bubbling call and dizzying courtship flight.

On Oct. 14, the state will dedicate a 400-acre woodcock habitat project in Garrett County in Geis' honor to continue his work.
Woodcock, also known as timberdoodle, are particular about the land where they carry out their elaborate mating dance. They prefer young stands of trees, no more than about 15 years old. They like the underbrush scrubby and the soil moist, the better to dig earthworms with their long, flexible beaks.
"It's ugly habitat. It really is," says Bill Harvey, the lead game bird biologist for the Department of Natural Resources.

And in Maryland and other urban states, it's hard to keep it that way.

A half-century ago, abandoned farm fields and old logging parcels created homes for woodcock and ruffed grouse, alder flycatchers and golden-winged warblers. But land like that has given way to subdivisions and communities like Columbia, Harvey says.

Geis was instrumental in getting Rouse and Columbia's founding fathers and county leaders to save some of that habitat for the Middle Patuxent Environment Area.

With the woodcock population falling about 2 percent a year, he realized that more habitat was needed.
So the man who spent his professional career at the Patuxent Research Center in Laurel before launching a second career as a consultant for the Wild Bird Centers of America began leaning on state officials.

At meetings of the state's Wildlife Advisory Commission, he would wait his turn, shifting in his seat, before unleashing his critique of DNR policy with specificity and some scorn.


"He was very dedicated to wildlife conservation," says Tom Matthews, who worked at DNR for 27 years before taking a job with the Wildlife Management Initiative. "But there were times he'd stomp by my office in Cumberland to chastise the department and I'd cringe."

In an obituary about Geis, Byron Hall, chairman of the Blandair Foundation in Howard County, recalled a man "of great contrasts," who could care for a friend in his dying days while also having "a history of taking no prisoners in public meetings."

To ensure his wishes were honored, Geis left some of his estate for developing woodcock projects.

Read the rest of the Baltimore Sun article

Ruffed Grouse Hunt - Deer River, MN Day 2

Tina and Her Deer River Mn Grouse

October 2nd, 2011

Saturday night was a long night as the dogs had drank so much water during the day that they kept having to go outside.  They woke me up at 11:30, 12:45, 1:30, and 4:30.  After the 4:30 wake up I put their training collars on them and they stayed quite.  Too quite it turned out as I ended up sleeping until 9 am.  That ruled out the longer drive to try some new areas that I had mapped out as it was already starting to get warm out.  so I decided to retry some of the areas from the day before to see if they still looked good.

The first spot that we went to was the walking trail area.  Tina and I started by walking a different section of the trail system.  After 30 minutes she hadn’t really gotten birdy at all we turned around and headed back to the section that we walked on Saturday.  Within 10 minutes she locked up solid and I was able to connect on a nice crossing shot.  We walked a while longer and didn’t move any other birds.

Next it was Marge’s turn to see if the forest road with the older growth would produce another bird.  We worked the trail a fair amount and while she did get a little birdy in a few spots we didn’t have any success actually moving one.  After getting back to the truck I got out Fergie and took her for a walk.  She can’t see but she still loves getting out in the woods and sniffing the air.

Tina and I then took a chance on the first spot that we had hunted yesterday.  The temperature was over 70 so it was a good last spot to try.  We went down the trail next to the clear cut and it still looked promising but it was just so dry it was hard to know if the scenting was decent at all.  We ended up going through the new growth to get back to the truck and she did make a nice point but it was so thick I couldn’t get into a good shooting position when I did flush the grouse.

Even though we cut the day short we did put one bird in the bag, confirmed that two spots were still a good bet, and ruled out another.

Ruffed Grouse Hunt Deer River, MN Day One

Saturday October 1 2011

Typical Cover For The Deer River MN Area

We left Mpls / St. Paul in the morning and made the three hour drive north.  After stopping at our rented cabin to drop off some gear and supplies we headed to the woods.  I decided to start out by trying some brand new areas to hunt.  I had purchased some maps that were created using Google Earth to show clear cuts and trails.  I loaded the gps info into the Garmin and we were on our way to just north of Deer River, MN.  The first area was two sets of small clear cuts with a small foot trail along one side of them.  As we worked the trail we came to some older growth and moved just a little ways into the new growth and turned back towards the vehicle.  About half way back we got a wild flush and moved towards where it looked like it set down.  Tina was working the scent but we did not make contact again.  It looked like a good enough area and with moving a bird in the 30 minute walk it has made the list to try again.


Spot number two ended up being a forest road that bordered an area that looked to be an older cut over area.  I was skeptical of it’s bird potential but we were there and it looked like easy enough walking for the 15 year old setter Marge.  This turned into and out and back affair but on the way back Marge made a nice point on a young bird and I was able to drop it.  Another 30 minute walk and another bird moved.  This area looked older than I would like but since we got a bird I added it to the try again list. 


Area number three turned out to be a MN Hunter Walking Trail.  There were no other vehicles there and with it hitting 60 degrees we decided to give it a chance.  There ended up being a number of different trails within the system.  We took the trail that looked like it went through the younger looking area.  It was hot and dusty.  The Northern MN area has been pretty dry after a wet and cool spring.  Tina was working a good pattern through the cover and after about 20 minutes and a few non-productive points she had one nailed and I got off a decent shot and connected.  We were able to repeat the pattern on the back side of the loop and collected another one for the game bag.


We made a stab at a fourth new area that also looked good but didn’t move a bird.  It was getting a bit later in the day so we went to our old standby in the Big Fork area.  In the first 40 minutes we moved 10 birds, got off 2 shots and didn’t connect on anything.  In the last 90 minutes we only moved one bird.


All in all it was a good start to the day with three birds in the bag and four new areas to try again.

Ruffed Grouse Hunt - Ely MN September 25th 2011

Tina, Marge, Fergie, and I With Sunday's Grouse Harvest

Sunday Sept 25th

We actually got rolling a bit earlier this morning than we did yesterday. I dropped my dad off at a new trail that he wanted to try and I went up the road to the spot that we tried for the first time Saturday. There wasn’t much breeze as Tina and I started down the trail, I was curious to see if we would see any birds or if yesterday was a fluke. It took about 15 minutes before she got birdy at all but we didn’t move a bird on the way out. After about 30 minutes we reached the end and turned back. I wasn’t feeling too optimistic at this time. About half way back Tina started to tighten up her quartering and locked solid. I was able to move in and connect on a flush through the brush. We didn’t see anymore birds on the way back to the truck. If we can get a chance at a bird or two each time down this shorter trail I’ll be happy.

I picked up my dad, who hadn’t seen any birds on his walk, and headed to the other short trail that we had hit yesterday. Marge got the call this time and we started off. About 2/3 of the way along the trail she went on point in a small area with thicker cover. It was a strait away shot and I thought I saw the bird go down but wasn’t sure. After looking and not easily seeing anything I got down on my hands and knees and found a couple of batches of feathers. I brought Marge back to the spot and she started to work the trail. After she cut back across the trail I could her the bird trying to make a run for it. Marge was right on her which was a little surprising as she is fairly hard of hearing. After coming back along the forest road we called it quits for this area.

We made another try at our old standby but again were not able to move a bird. We pulled the plug and listened to the Vikings blow a huge half time lead for the third week in a row.

All in all it was a decent weekend. Six birds in the bag, some nice Woodcock points. It was a little disappointing to be moving fewer than 1/2 of the birds that we were seeing last season.