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Driving down our driveway I saw what I thought was a pile of rusty colored leaves on the side of the road. After driving by I realized that it was perfectly round on top and could not be a pile of leaves. I put the car in reverse and found a gorgeous male copper colored ruffed grouse in full display.

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I have photographed hundreds of grouse in my life but have never seen one with this coloration before. After e-mailing local wildlife officials I found out that the copper band on the tail and ruff is uncommon and rarely seen. It is also referred to as bronze, chocolate or cinnamon. 95% of the grouse population have a black tail band and ruff.

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Studies on ruffed grouse have found 58 different tail color variations but are generally divided into five different color phases – gray, red, brown, intermediate or split. In this photo I focused the lens on the fully fanned tail to show the beautiful patterns. This one is probably a gray phase, but any phase grouse can have the gene that produces the copper or cinnamon colored ruff and tail band.

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Focusing the lens on the head it looks like it is sticking out from a hole in the feathers.

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He wasn’t bothered by my presence and displayed for almost half an hour. He kept his tail fanned along with his fully extended neck feathers. He was strutting his stuff trying to impress the two-female grouse that were moving through the woods in front of him.

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From the side I thought the ruff looked like two tiny little wings.

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He was a proud stately bird.

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He stopped on a moss-covered log. I felt fortunate to be able to live in a wild enough place to be able to photograph such an uncommon and beautiful bird right outside our house.

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Here is one of the females that was causing him to show off and put on such a colorful display.

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