Hazel Grouse

About the Hazel Grouse

The hazel grouse (Tetrastes bonasia), sometimes called the hazel hen, is one of the smaller members of the grouse tribe of birds. It is a sedentary species, breeding across the Palearctic as far east as Hokkaido, and as far west as central Europe, in dense, damp, mixed coniferous woodland, preferably with some spruce. The bird is sometimes referred to as "rabchick" (from рябчик) by early 20th century English speaking travellers to Russia.

The hazel grouse was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Tetrao bonasia. Although Linnaeus specified the type locality as Europe, this is restricted to Sweden. The hazel grouse is now placed with the Chinese grouse in the genus Tetrastes that was introduced in 1840 by Alexander von Keyserling and Johann Heinrich Blasius. The specific epithet bonasia is Modern Latin for the hazel grouse, from the Italian name for the species.

Eleven subspecies are recognised: T. b. rhenanus (Kleinschmidt, 1917) – northeast France, Luxembourg, Belgium and west Germany T. b. styriacus (von Jordans & Schiebel, 1944) – Alps, south Poland to Hungary T. b. schiebeli... Wikipedia →