Why Are Ruffed Grouse Different Colors?

From old wives’ tales and 19th-century scientific debates to Ice Age genetics and modern survival studies, the color phases of Ruffed Grouse tell a much more complicated story than simply red versus gray. Why are some Ruffed Grouse gray while others are red, brown, or somewhere in between? In this episode, Gabby and AJ trace more than a century of attempts to answer that question—from old New England folklore to modern genetic and survival research. The story begins with Gordon Gullion’s four...