Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret.
74-480: The western capercaillie ( Tetrao urogallus ), also known as the Eurasian capercaillie , wood grouse , heather cock , cock-of-the-woods , or simply capercaillie / ˌ k æ p ər ˈ k eɪ l ( j ) i / , is a heavy member of the grouse family and the largest of all extant grouse species. The heaviest-known specimen, recorded in captivity, had a weight of 7.2 kilograms (16 pounds). Found across Europe and
148-614: A begging sound. If there is more than one cock on the lek, it is mainly the alpha-cock who engages in copulation with the hens. In this phase western capercaillies are most sensitive to disturbances. Even single human observers may cause the hens to fly off and prevent copulation in this very short time span where they are ready for conception. In Scandinavia and in Scotland, male western capercaillies are well-known for their combative behavior during mating season, sometimes even challenging and chasing off people who enter their territory. In
222-462: A clear track in the snow. The sexes can be distinguished very easily by the size of their footprints. There is a bright red spot of naked skin above each eye. In German hunters' language, these are the so-called "roses". The small chicks resemble the hen in their cryptic colouration, which is a passive protection against predators. Additionally, they wear black crown feathers. At an age of about three months, in late summer, they moult gradually towards
296-427: A day off of the nest feeding and as such become somewhat constipated. The presence of a nest nearby is often indicated by distinctively enlarged and malformed droppings known as "clocker droppings". All eggs hatch in close proximity after which the hen and clutch abandon the nest where they are at their most vulnerable. Abandoned nests often contain "caeacal" droppings; the discharge from the hens' appendixes built up over
370-512: A length of 100 cm (40 in) and weight of 6.7 kg (14 lb 12 oz). The largest specimen recorded in captivity had a weight of 7.2 kg (15 lb 14 oz). The weight of 75 wild cocks was found to range from 3.6 to 5.05 kg (7 lb 15 oz to 11 lb 2 oz). The body feathers are dark grey to dark brown, while the breast feathers are dark metallic green. The belly and undertail coverts vary from black to white depending on race (see below). The hen (female)
444-492: A limited time monopoly on its use, though patent applications are initially secret. Secret societies use secrecy as a way to attract members by creating a sense of importance. Shell companies may be used to launder money from criminal activity, to finance terrorism, or to evade taxes. Registers of beneficial ownership aim at fighting corporate secrecy in that sense. Other laws require organizations to keep certain information secret, such as medical records ( HIPAA in
518-508: A male defends a territory which has resources that females need, like food and nest sites. These differences in male behavior in mating systems account for the evolution of body size in grouse. Males of territorial species were smaller than those of exploded lekking species, and males of typical lekking species were the largest overall. The male birds that exhibit lekking behavior, and have to compete with other males for females to choose them, have greater sexual dimorphism in size. This suggests
592-541: A number of different ways: encoding or encryption (where mathematical and technical strategies are used to hide messages), true secrecy (where restrictions are put upon those who take part of the message, such as through government security classification ) and obfuscation , where secrets are hidden in plain sight behind complex idiosyncratic language ( jargon ) or steganography . Another classification proposed by Claude Shannon in 1948 reads that there are three systems of secrecy within communication: Animals conceal
666-530: A study it was found that the testosterone level in such "deviant" males was about five times higher than that of normal displaying males. There is a smaller courting peak in autumn, which serves to delineate the territories for the winter months and the next season. About three days after copulation the hen starts laying eggs. In 10 days the clutch is full. The average clutch size is eight eggs but may amount up to 12, rarely only four or five eggs. Brooding lasts about 26–28 days according to weather and altitude. At
740-750: A subject of the laws, as is true outside of elections) in selecting their government servants. It is argued that secrecy is impermissible as against the public in the area of elections where the government gets all of its power and taxing authority. In any event, permissible secrecy varies significantly with the context involved. Organizations, ranging from multi-national for profit corporations to nonprofit charities , keep secrets for competitive advantage , to meet legal requirements, or, in some cases, to conceal nefarious behavior. New products under development, unique manufacturing techniques, or simply lists of customers are types of information protected by trade secret laws. Research on corporate secrecy has studied
814-408: A sudden thundering noise that deters predators. Because of their body size and wingspan they avoid young and dense forests when flying. While flying they rest in short gliding phases. Their feathers produce a whistling sound. Western capercaillie, especially the hens with young chicks, require resources that should occur as parts of a small-scaled patchy mosaic: These are food plants, small insects for
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#1732797403618888-498: Is Joseph Conrad 's short story " The Secret Sharer ". Governments often attempt to conceal information from other governments and the public. These state secrets can include weapon designs, military plans, diplomatic negotiation tactics, and secrets obtained illicitly from others (" intelligence "). Most nations have some form of Official Secrets Act (the Espionage Act in the U.S.) and classify material according to
962-529: Is a series of double-clicks like a dropping ping-pong ball, which gradually accelerate into a popping sound like a cork coming off a champagne bottle, which is followed by scraping sounds. Towards the end of the courting season the hens arrive on the courting grounds, also called "lek" , Swedish for "play". The cocks continue courting on the ground: This is the main courting season. The cock flies from his courting tree to an open space nearby and continues his display. The hens, ready to get mounted, crouch and utter
1036-420: Is a shallow depression or scrape on the ground—often in cover—with a scanty lining of plant material. The female lays one clutch , but may replace it if the eggs are lost. She begins to lay about a week after mating and lays one egg every day or two; the clutch comprises five to 12 eggs. The eggs have the shape of hen's eggs and are pale yellow, sparsely spotted with brown. On laying the second-last or last egg,
1110-542: Is called sexual dimorphism . Male grouse tend to be larger than female grouse, which seems to hold true across all the species of grouse, with some difference within each species in terms of how drastic the size difference is. The hypothesis with the most supporting evidence for the evolution of sexual dimorphism in grouse is sexual selection. Sexual selection favors large males; stronger selection for larger size in males leads to greater size dimorphism. Female size will increase correspondingly as male size increases, and this
1184-509: Is due to heredity (but not to the extent of the male size). This is because females that are smaller will still be able to reproduce without a substantial disadvantage, but this is not the case with males. The largest among the male grouse (commonly dubbed 'Biggrouse') attract the greatest numbers of females during their mating seasons. Male grouse display lekking behavior, which is when many males come together in one area and put on displays to attract females. Females selectively choose among
1258-441: Is greatly impaired. The abundance of western capercaillie depends—as with most species—on habitat quality. It is highest in sun-flooded open, old mixed forests with spruce, pine, fir and some beech with a rich ground cover of Vaccinium species. Spring territories are about 25 hectares (62 acres) per bird. Comparable abundances are found in taiga forests. Thus, the western capercaillie never had particularly high densities, despite
1332-400: Is limited to the daylight hours. They spend the night in old trees with horizontal branches. These sleeping trees are used for several nights; they can be mapped easily as the ground under them is covered by pellets. The hens are ground breeders and spend the night on the nest. As long as the young chicks cannot fly, the hen spends the night with them in dense cover on the ground. During winter
1406-402: Is mere territorial competition between neighbouring cocks or cocks on the same courting ground. At the very beginning of dawn, the tree courting begins on a thick branch of a lookout tree. The cock postures himself with raised and fanned tail feathers, erect neck, beak pointed skywards, wings held out and drooped and starts his typical aria to impress the females. The typical song in this display
1480-400: Is much smaller, weighing about half as much as the cock. The capercaillie hen's body from beak to tail is approximately 54–64 cm (21–25 in) long, the wingspan is 70 cm (28 in) and weighs 1.5–2.5 kg (3 lb 5 oz – 5 lb 8 oz), with an average of 1.8 kg (3 lb 15 oz). Feathers on the upper parts are brown with black and silver barring; on
1554-403: Is not kept secret. Information hiding is a design principle in much software engineering . It is considered easier to verify software reliability if one can be sure that different parts of the program can only access (and therefore depend on) a known limited amount of information. Military secrecy is the concealing of information about martial affairs that is purposely not made available to
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#17327974036181628-431: Is often controversial, depending on the content or nature of the secret, the group or people keeping the secret, and the motivation for secrecy. Secrecy by government entities is often decried as excessive or in promotion of poor operation ; excessive revelation of information on individuals can conflict with virtues of privacy and confidentiality . It is often contrasted with social transparency . Secrecy can exist in
1702-427: Is strongly influenced by weather—dry and warm conditions allow a fast growth of the chicks, cold and rainy weather leads to high mortality. During winter, when a high snow cover prevents access to ground vegetation, the western capercaillie spends almost all day and night in trees, feeding on coniferous needles of spruce , pine and fir as well as on buds from beech and rowan . To digest this coarse winter food,
1776-741: The Bavarian Forest , the Black Forest and the Harz mountains numbers of surviving western capercaillie decline even under massive efforts to breed them in captivity and release them into the wild. In Switzerland , they are found in the Swiss Alps and in the Jura ; they are also present in the Austrian and Italian Alps. In Ireland it was common until the 17th century, but was extirpated in
1850-527: The Palearctic , this primarily-ground-dwelling forest grouse is renowned for its courtship display. The bird shows extreme sexual dimorphism , with males nearly twice the size of females. The global population is listed as "least concern" under the IUCN, although the populations of central Europe are declining and fragmented, or possibly extirpated . The western capercaillie is one of two living species under
1924-513: The White Sea . Grouse Pucrasia Meleagris Bonasa Tetrastes Centrocercus Dendragapus Tympanuchus Lagopus Falcipennis Canachites Tetrao Lyrurus and see text Tetraonidae Vigors , 1825 Tetraoninae Vigors, 1825 Grouse / ɡ r aʊ s / are a group of birds from the order Galliformes , in the family Phasianidae . Grouse are presently assigned to
1998-564: The black-billed capercaillie is located. There is less variation in the females of this species. A native Scottish population of western capercaillie which became extinct between 1770 and 1785 was probably a distinct subspecies, although it was never formally described as such. The western capercaillie found in Scotland is an introduced population of the nominate subspecies urogallus . Western capercaillies are known to hybridise occasionally with black grouse (these hybrids being known by
2072-470: The landmark legal case of United States v. Reynolds , decided by the Supreme Court in 1953. Excessive secrecy is often cited as a source of much human conflict. One may have to lie in order to hold a secret, which might lead to psychological repercussions. The alternative, declining to answer when asked something, may suggest the answer and may therefore not always be suitable for keeping
2146-490: The ptarmigans , have legs which are entirely covered in feathers; in winter the toes, too, have feathers or small scales on the sides, an adaptation for walking on snow and burrowing into it for shelter. Unlike many other galliforms, they typically have no spurs , although turkeys do possess very prominent spurs. Grouse feed mainly on vegetation—buds, catkins , leaves, and twigs—which typically accounts for over 95% of adults' food by weight. Thus, their diets vary greatly with
2220-756: The red grouse and the ruffed grouse have benefited from habitat management. Most grouse species are listed by the IUCN as "least concern" or "near threatened", but the greater and lesser prairie chicken are listed as "vulnerable" and the Gunnison grouse is listed as "endangered". Some subspecies, such as Attwater's prairie chicken and the Cantabrian capercaillie , and some national and regional populations are also in danger. The wild turkey precipitously declined before returning to abundance, even in developed areas. The phenotypic difference between males and females
2294-508: The taiga forests of the Palearctic in the cold temperate latitudes and the coniferous forest belt in the mountain ranges of warm temperate Europe. The Scottish population became extinct , but has been reintroduced from the Swedish population; in Germany it is on the "Red List" as a species threatened by extinction and is no longer found in the lower mountainous areas of Bavaria ; in
Western capercaillie - Misplaced Pages Continue
2368-1024: The tribe Tetraonini (formerly the subfamily Tetraoninae and the family Tetraonidae ), a classification supported by mitochondrial DNA sequence studies, and applied by the American Ornithologists' Union , ITIS , International Ornithological Congress , and others. Grouse inhabit temperate and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere , from pine forests to moorland and mountainside , from 83°N ( rock ptarmigan in northern Greenland ) to 28°N ( Attwater's prairie chicken in Texas ). The turkeys are closely allied with grouse, but they have traditionally been excluded from Tetraonini, often placed in their own tribe, subfamily, or family; certain more modern treatments also exclude them. Later phylogenomic analyses demonstrated conclusively that they are sister to
2442-669: The 18th century. In Norway , Sweden , Finland , Russia and Romania populations are large, and it is a common bird to see in forested regions; especially in Central Finland , that it occurs in the coat of arms of the region and is also a regional bird. The most serious threats to the species are habitat degradation , particularly conversion of diverse native forest into often single-species timber plantations , and to birds colliding with fences erected to keep deer out of young plantations. Increased numbers of small predators that prey on capercaillies (e.g., red fox ) due to
2516-680: The German name Rackelhahn ) and the closely related black-billed capercaillie. Male and female western capercaillie can easily be differentiated by their size and colouration. The cock is much bigger than the hen. It is one of the most sexually dimorphic in size of living bird species, only exceeded by the larger types of bustards and a select few members of the pheasant family. Cocks (males) typically range from 74 to 85 centimetres (29 to 33 inches) in length with wingspan of 90 to 125 cm (35 to 49 in) and an average weight of 4.1 kg (9 lb 1 oz). The largest wild cocks can attain
2590-637: The IUCN Red List threshold of a population decline of more than 30% in ten years or three generations. It is therefore evaluated as least concern . As reported by the Spanish researcher Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in his "Fauna" series, the northwestern Spanish subspecies T. u. cantabricus —an Ice Age remnant—was threatened in the 1960s by commercial gathering of holly fruit-bearing branches for sale as Christmas ornaments—a practice imported from Anglo-Saxon or Germanic countries. In Scotland ,
2664-410: The U.S. Freedom of Information Act and sunshine laws . Government officials sometimes leak information they are supposed to keep secret. ( For a recent (2005) example, see Plame affair . ) Secrecy in elections is a growing issue, particularly secrecy of vote counts on computerized vote counting machines. While voting, citizens are acting in a unique sovereign or "owner" capacity (instead of being
2738-422: The U.S.), or financial reports that are under preparation (to limit insider trading ). Europe has particularly strict laws about database privacy. Preservation of secrets is one of the goals of information security . Techniques used include physical security and cryptography . The latter depends on the secrecy of cryptographic keys . Many believe that security technology can be more effective if it itself
2812-399: The adult plumage of cocks and hens. The eggs are about the same size and form as chicken eggs, but are more speckled with brown spots. The capercaillie is a non-migratory sedentary species, breeding across northern parts of Europe and the Palearctic in mature conifer forests with diverse species composition and a relatively open canopy structure. At one time it was present in all
2886-446: The beginning of the brooding season, the hens are very sensitive to disturbances and leave the nest quickly. Towards the end they tolerate disturbances to a certain degree, crouching on their nest which is usually hidden under low branches of a young tree or a broken tree crown . As hatching nears, hens sit tighter on the nest and will only flush from the nest if disturbed in very close proximity. Nesting hens rarely spend more than an hour
2960-413: The birds need grit: small stones or gastroliths which they actively search for and devour. With their very muscular stomachs , gizzard stones function like a mill and break needles and buds into small particles. Additionally, western capercaillie have two appendixes which grow very long in winter. With the aid of symbiotic bacteria , the plant material is digested there. During the short winter days
3034-465: The chicks, cover in dense young trees or high ground vegetation, old trees with horizontal branches for sleeping. These criteria are met best in old forest stands with spruce and pine, dense ground vegetation and local tree regrowth on dry slopes in southern to western expositions. These open stands allow flights downslope, and the tree regrowth offers cover. In the lowlands such forest structures developed over centuries by heavy exploitation, especially by
Western capercaillie - Misplaced Pages Continue
3108-530: The decline. The western capercaillie is adapted to its original habitats—old coniferous forests with a rich interior structure and dense ground vegetation of Vaccinium species under a light canopy. They mainly feed on Vaccinium species, especially bilberry , find cover in young tree growth, and use the open spaces when flying. As habitat specialists, they hardly use any other forest types. Western capercaillies are not elegant fliers due to their body weight and short, rounded wings. While taking off they produce
3182-485: The energy intake is transformed into the protein of the flight musculature (the white flesh around the breast in chickens). At an age of 3–4 weeks they are able to perform their first short flights. From this time on they start to sleep in trees on warm nights. At an age of about 6 weeks they are fully able to maintain their body temperature. The down feathers have been moulted into the immature plumage and at an age of 3 months another moult brings in their subadult plumage; now
3256-471: The factors supporting secret organizations. In particular, scholars in economics and management have paid attention to the way firms participating in cartels work together to maintain secrecy and conceal their activities from antitrust authorities. The diversity of the participants (in terms of age and size of the firms) influences their ability to coordinate to avoid being detected. The patent system encourages inventors to publish information in exchange for
3330-411: The family with outsiders or sometimes even within the family. Many "family secrets" are maintained by using a mutually agreed-upon construct (an official family story) when speaking with outside members. Agreement to maintain the secret is often coerced through "shaming" and reference to family honor . The information may even be something as trivial as a recipe . Secrets are sometimes kept to provide
3404-404: The female starts 21 to 28 days of incubation. Chicks hatch in dense, yellow-brown down and leave the nest immediately. They soon develop feathers and can fly shortly before they are two weeks old. The female (and the male in the willow grouse) stays with them and protects them until their first autumn, when they reach their mature weights (except in the male capercaillies ). They are sexually mature
3478-581: The following spring, but often do not mate until later years. Grouse make up a considerable part of the vertebrate biomass in the Arctic and Subarctic. Their numbers may fall sharply in years of bad weather or high predator populations—significant grouse populations are a major food source for lynx , foxes , martens , and birds of prey . The three tundra species have maintained their former numbers. The prairie and forest species have declined greatly because of habitat loss, though popular game birds such as
3552-582: The general public and hence to any enemy, in order to gain an advantage or to not reveal a weakness, to avoid embarrassment , or to help in propaganda efforts. Most military secrets are tactical in nature, such as the strengths and weaknesses of weapon systems , tactics , training methods, plans, and the number and location of specific weapons. Some secrets involve information in broader areas, such as secure communications, cryptography , intelligence operations, and cooperation with third parties. US Government rights in regard to military secrecy were uphold in
3626-551: The genus Tetrao , which also includes the lesser-known black-billed capercaillie . The word capercaillie is a corruption of the Scottish Gaelic capall coille ( Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [kʰaʰpəɫ̪ˈkʰɤʎə] ) "Horse of the woodland". The Scots borrowing is spelled capercailzie (the Scots use of z represents an archaic spelling with yogh and is silent; see Mackenzie (surname) ). The current spelling
3700-456: The ground at dawn and dusk, which in some are given in leks . The displays feature males' brightly colored combs and in some species, brightly colored inflatable sacs on the sides of their necks. The males display their plumage , give vocalizations that vary widely between species, and may engage in other activities, such as drumming or fluttering their wings, rattling their tails, and making display flights. Occasionally, males fight. The nest
3774-421: The hens rarely go down to the ground and most tracks in the snow are from cocks. The western capercaillie lives on a variety of food types, including buds, leaves, berries , insects , grasses and in the winter mostly conifer needles. One can see the food remains in their droppings, which are about 1 cm ( 1 ⁄ 2 in) in diameter and 5–6 cm (2– 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) in length. Most of
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#17327974036183848-411: The hypothesis of sexual selection affecting male body size and also gives an explanation for why some species of grouse have a more drastic difference between male and female body size than others. Sexual size dimorphism can manifest itself differently between grouse and other birds. In some cases, the female is dominant over the male in breeding behavior, which can result in females that are larger than
3922-551: The incubation period. After hatching the chicks are dependent on getting warmed by the hen. Like all precocial birds, the young are fully covered by down feathers at hatching but are not able to maintain their body temperature which is 41 °C (106 °F) in birds. In cold and rainy weather the chicks need to get warmed by the hen every few minutes and all night. They seek food independently and prey mainly on insects, like butterfly caterpillars and pupae , ants , myriapodae , ground beetles . They grow rapidly and most of
3996-457: The larch taiga forests of eastern Russia and parts of northern Mongolia and China . The western capercaillie has 8 recognized subspecies: Subspecies of the western capercaillie show increasing amounts of white on the underparts of males distributed west to east, almost wholly black with only a few white spots underneath in western and central Europe to nearly pure white in Siberia, where
4070-459: The largest grouse species, attaining lengths of 130 cm (50 in) and weighing up to 10 kg (22 lb). Male grouse are larger than females, and can be twice as heavy in the western capercaillie (the largest of the traditional grouse). Like many other galliforms, males often sport incredibly elaborate ornamentation, such as crests, fan-tails, and inflatable, brightly colored patches of bare skin. Many grouse have feathered nostrils, and some species, such as
4144-464: The legends that hunters may speculate about. Adult cocks are strongly territorial and occupy a range of 50 to 60 hectares (120 to 150 acres) optimal habitat. Hen territories are about 40 hectares (100 acres). The annual range can be several square kilometres (hundreds of hectares) when storms and heavy snowfall force the birds to winter at lower altitudes. Territories of cocks and hens may overlap. Western capercaillie are diurnal game, i.e., their activity
4218-492: The level of protection needed (hence the term " classified information "). An individual needs a security clearance for access and other protection methods, such as keeping documents in a safe , are stipulated. Few people dispute the desirability of keeping Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information secret, but many believe government secrecy to be excessive and too often employed for political purposes. Many countries have laws that attempt to limit government secrecy, such as
4292-604: The location of their den or nest from predators . Squirrels bury nuts, hiding them, and they try to remember their locations later. Humans attempt to consciously conceal aspects of themselves from others due to shame , or from fear of violence, rejection, harassment, loss of acceptance , or loss of employment . Humans may also attempt to conceal aspects of their own self which they are not capable of incorporating psychologically into their conscious being. Families sometimes maintain " family secrets ", obliging family members never to discuss disagreeable issues concerning
4366-456: The loss of large predators who control smaller carnivores (e.g., gray wolf , brown bear ) cause problems in some areas. This species has an estimated range of 1,000,000–10,000,000 km (390,000–3,860,000 sq mi) and a population of between 1.5 and 2 million individuals in Europe alone. There is some evidence of a population decline, but the overall species is not believed to approach
4440-425: The males present for traits they find more appealing. Male grouse exhibit two types: typical lekking and exploded lekking. In typical lekking, males display in small areas defending a limited territory, and in exploded lekking, displaying males are covered over an expansive land area and share larger territories. Male grouse can also compete with one another for access to female grouse through territoriality, in which
4514-651: The males. Grouse are game , and hunters kill millions each year for food, sport, and other uses. In the United Kingdom, this takes the form of driven grouse shooting . The male black grouse 's tail feathers are a traditional ornament for hats in areas such as Scotland and the Alps . Folk dances from the Alps to the North American prairies imitate the displays of lekking males. covert#Noun Secrecy
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#17327974036184588-615: The most social, forming flocks of up to 100 in winter. All grouse spend most of their time on the ground, though when alarmed, they may take off in a flurry and go into a long glide. Most species stay within their breeding range all year, but make short seasonal movements; many individuals of the ptarmigan (called rock ptarmigan in the US) and willow grouse (called willow ptarmigan in the US) migrate hundreds of kilometers. In all but one species (the willow ptarmigan ), males are polygamous . Many species have elaborate courtship displays on
4662-536: The often wary birds. In Sweden , western capercaillies are the primary prey of the golden eagle ( Aquila chrysaetos ). Large numbers are taken by northern goshawks ( Accipiter gentilis ), including adults but usually young ones, and Eurasian eagle-owls ( Bubo bubo ) will occasionally pick off a capercaillie of any age or size; they normally prefer mammalian foods. White-tailed eagles ( Haliaeetus albicilla ) are more likely to take water birds than upland-type birds but have been recorded preying on capercaillie around
4736-427: The pleasure of surprise. This includes keeping secret about a surprise party , not telling spoilers of a story, and avoiding exposure of a magic trick. Keeping one’s strategy secret – is important in many aspects of game theory . In anthropology secret sharing is one way for people to establish traditional relations with other people. A commonly used narrative that describes this kind of behavior
4810-749: The population has declined greatly since the 1960s because of deer fencing, predation and lack of suitable habitat ( Caledonian Forest ). The population plummeted from a high of 10,000 pairs in the 1960s to fewer than 1000 birds in 1999. It was even named as the bird most likely to become extinct in the UK by 2015, a survey then identified 1114 birds, occupying a reduced range of terrain. In mountainous skiing areas, poorly marked cables for ski-lifts have contributed to mortality. Their effects can be mitigated by proper coloring, sighting and height alterations. A study published in 2022 by NatureScot scientific advisory committee recommended 'renewed intensive measures' to maintain
4884-510: The population, especially steps to assist in the survival of eggs and chicks. Predators like crows, foxes and pine martens are blamed for the decline, as well as the deer fences , and increased human recreation in the territory which can injure adult birds.It was declared as 'extremely vulnerable' and requiring urgent action. Biodiversity Minister for Scotland, Lorna Slater , MSP described capercaillie as 'magnificent birds' and ' iconic' for Scotland and called for 'partnership working' to reverse
4958-667: The seasons. Hatchlings eat mostly insects and other invertebrates , gradually reducing their proportion of animal food to adult levels. Several of the forest-living species are notable for eating large quantities of conifer needles, which most other vertebrates refuse. To digest vegetable food, grouse have big crops and gizzards , eat grit to break up food, and have long intestines with well-developed caeca in which symbiotic bacteria digest cellulose . Forest species flock only in autumn and winter, though individuals tolerate each other when they meet. Prairie species are more social, and tundra species (ptarmigans, Lagopus ) are
5032-622: The traditionally-defined grouse, and they, along with the somewhat earlier-diverging koklass pheasant , may be treated as grouse (i.e., as basal members of the Tetraonini). This is reflected in some more recent circumscriptions. Like many other galliforms, grouse are generally heavily-built birds. The traditional grouse (excluding turkeys) range in length from 31 to 95 cm (12 to 37 + 1 ⁄ 2 in), and in weight from 0.3 to 6.5 kg ( 3 ⁄ 4 to 14 + 1 ⁄ 4 lb). If they are included, wild turkey toms are
5106-640: The two sexes can be easily distinguished. From the beginning of September the families start to dissolve. First the young cocks disperse, then the young hens. Both sexes may form loose foraging groups over the winter. Mammalian predators known to take capercaillie include Eurasian lynx ( Lynx lynx ) and gray wolf ( Canis lupus ), although they prefer slightly larger prey. Meanwhile, European pine martens ( Martes martes ), beech martens ( Martes foina ), brown bears ( Ursus arctos ), wild boars ( Sus scrofa ) and red foxes ( Vulpes vulpes ) take mostly eggs and chicks but can attack adults if they manage to ambush
5180-400: The underside they are more light and buffish yellow. Both sexes have a white spot on the wing bow. They have feathered legs, especially in the cold season, for protection against cold. Their toe rows of small, elongated horn tacks provide a snowshoe effect that led to the German family name "Rauhfußhühner", literally translated as "rough feet chickens". These so-called "courting tacks" make
5254-425: The use of litter and grazing livestock . In the highlands and along the ridges of mountain areas in temperate Europe as well as in the taiga region from Fennoscandia to Siberia, the boreal forests show this open structure due to the harsh climate, offering optimal habitats for capercaillie without human influence. Dense and young forests are avoided as there is neither cover nor food, and flight of these large birds
5328-508: The western capercaillie feeds almost constantly and produces a pellet nearly every 10 minutes. A recent study using DNA from faeces in Norway and France found that their diet is much more varied than had been documented. The breeding season of the western capercaillie starts according to spring weather progress, vegetation development and altitude between March and April and lasts until May or June. Three-quarters of this long courting season
5402-488: The year the droppings are of solid consistency but, with the ripening of blueberries , these dominate the diet and the faeces become formless and bluish black. The western capercaillie is a highly specialized herbivore , which feeds almost exclusively on blueberry leaves and berries with some grass seeds and fresh shoots of sedges in summertime. The young chicks are dependent on protein -rich food in their first weeks and thus mainly prey on insects. Available insect supply
5476-516: Was standardised by William Yarrell in 1843. The genus name is derived from the Latin name of a game bird , probably the black grouse . The species name, urogallus , is a Neo-Latin partial homophone of German Auerhuhn . The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae under its current binomial name. Its closest relative is the black-billed capercaillie , Tetrao parvirostris , which breeds in
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