Reflections on a good day

[IA Hunter]

That looks like a lot of fun & great dog work!!

 

[koja48]

Sounds like a great day! I did the same thing here in WA state, only without the birds

 

[mustistuff]

More of a cuisine type question...when I was stationed up at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, AK I hunted spruce grouse, ruffed and sharptails. The spruce grouse I ate were a bit bitter, so you usually had to let them marinate in concentrated OJ, milk, italian dressing, or something to that effect.

The ptarmigan I shot also were very, very dark meat.

With that, are blues the same as spruce grouse or ptarmigan?? The dove I shot and ate this past weekend were a bit darker than what I have had before. I guess it just depends on what they are eating.

Greg

mostly the answer is no. the dark meat comes from flying a lot, young birds will have lighter meat. blue grouse are light meat and to me are sweeter than the best of the pheasant. ptarmigan are usually in between. i have found them great.

cheers

 

[Uplandhunter67]

I think in some birds dark meat is a result of flying. I don't think that hold true though for all birds. Sage grouse do not spend a majority of their time flying yet have dark red meat as do ptarmigan. Both tend to be walkers only taking to flight when spooked. Blue grouse roost in trees so they regulary fly but yet their meat is light and tender. I do think their diet may be a contributing factor to meat color similar to the differnces between corn fed and wild fed animals. I guess the theories have plenty of room for debate.

 

[mustistuff]

breast color

surely out there somewhere there are exceptiions, generally birds that fly have dark meat and those that have light meat tend to walk. prairie chickens actually fly quite a lot, as do sage hens, i have found the sage hens meat to be at least in the older birds, purple and impossible to eat. ptarmigan actually migrate and move around a great deal and they fly to get there not walk. sharp tail grouse also fly sometimes great distances at least several miles on a routine basis, you might also carry this a bit further and look at the leg meat color of the birds that walk a lot, it's dark meat. food surely shows up in how a bird taste, coots for example but then even some people ate them, the ol' market hunters sold them for five cents apiece, yuk! think the color has something to do with the blood supply needed for that type of exercise. anyway

cheers