Andersen shadow analysis of the work. The motive for the loss of a shadow in G.Kh’s fairy tale

Capercaillie, weather and hunting dates.

Now a little about the timing of the hunt.

The opening of hunting for all permitted species of game in this area is from May 1. On April 28-30, the snow completely melted, small birds seem to almost never shut up at night. The old capercaillies have already migrated away, and only young people remain on the clearing. They don't talk very actively, despite the fact that the audibility of the current is generally very weak ( main factor– songs of small birds) even using active headphones I was unable to hear the singing capercaillie closer than 70-100 meters away.
Approaching such a distance takes from 10 to 20 minutes; it is during this precious time that extraneous noise increases with every second and dawn actively, which reduces the chances of approaching the wood grouse unnoticed. Officially, the hunt continues from May 1 to May 9. With the onset of real warmth, already on May 5-6, the foliage on the trees begins to bloom, which completely eliminates the successful hunting of the lek - the capercaillie is simply not heard.
What follows from this? The conclusion is simple - with the given hunting periods, it is almost impossible to take a capercaillie on a lek within the official deadlines. Therefore, all local hunters go hunting based not on official dates, but on their own observations of weather conditions.
The observations concern not only the current year, but also the three previous years. Hunting for capercaillie at the lek is opened too late and for too short a time.
Of course, these are observations from only one region, and from one current, but I’m sure the situation is similar everywhere. It may be necessary to reconsider the timing of hunting for specific types of game, and adjust them based on weather conditions and common sense.

The sounds made by a singing bird are unusual; they bear little resemblance to a song, but are pleasant and fill the forest hut with blissful joy. This miraculous sound has reached us from the depths of centuries, it acts magically, touches the poetic strings in our souls, the vibrations of which make the heart beat joyfully. The wood grouse's song is an enthusiastic hymn to spring, warmth, sun, love. The soloist makes us fall silent, freeze, forget about everything in the world and listen with bated breath. When you see such a wonder, you want to believe in a fairy tale and listen again and again...

Hunting for wood grouse on a lek

My grandfather was an avid hunter in his youth: he hunted elk, wild boar, and poultry. And instead of bedtime stories, he told us, now grown-up grandchildren, stories about a successful hunt. It seems that hunting for wood grouse is not for you to go after a bear, hide and shoot, but it’s not that simple. “You need to know the habits of wood grouse,” said the grandfather: “What’s the point of shooting into empty air?”

Near my grandfather’s village there was a large moss swamp mixed with tall forest. On the outskirts of that very swamp, wood grouse chose a place for themselves, but it was very difficult to get there: at the end of March - beginning of April, the current begins, and wood grouse choose places away from human habitation.

My grandfather, who had been hunting with his father since childhood, knew about the location of the lek and before the hunt went out on reconnaissance, called “overhearing.” He quietly approached the lek, took better cover and waited for the heavy flapping of wings to be heard and the wood grouse to perch in the trees. By the noise made by the flapping wings of capercaillie, my grandfather managed to determine the almost exact number of birds. Shooting during “overhearing” was strictly prohibited, so as not to spoil the hunt for the next couple of weeks; the capercaillie is a very careful bird.

The hunt began early in the morning; while it was still dark, the grandfather and his father approached the current as silently as possible and stopped 150-200 meters from it, waiting for the current to begin. “And the wood grouse’s song is wonderful,” said the grandfather: “It clicks, then “skirts,” and begins to sing in the trees, and then descends to the ground to show off to his wood grouse. They are cocky, capercaillie, and they all try to fight among themselves.” While clicking, the capercaillie keeps its ears open, and then, starting to “skir,” it becomes so deaf that the sound of the shot may not be heard. You need to shoot to the sound of a “skirting” sound, to a “dumb” song. According to the grandfather’s stories, the most difficult thing is to skillfully take advantage of the short period of “skidding” and get close to the capercaillie within the distance of a sure shot.

Grandfather collected a lot of trophies during his life, but for some reason he always liked to talk more about hunting wood grouse, saying that the bird was too beautiful, and the hunt for it itself was apparently very interesting for him.

Alexey (regular reader)

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Capercaillie current in Udmurtia Malo-Purginsky district of the educational establishment "Kurchumsky" State Unitary Enterprise UR "Udmurtokhota", spring 2011. The first film. Der brave Auerhahn. Fruehlingsjagd. A brave wild cock. Spring hunting.

Each hunt is good in its own way, but hunting wood grouse in the spring current is something special. The sounds of capercaillie songs, mysterious and exciting, transport us to the world of pristine nature. An indescribable thrill of anticipation, a fantastic fusion with the surrounding space, hopes and doubts, delight and disappointment - all this will be experienced by the hunter going for a bright trophy. The capercaillie is often called a relict bird, since during its existence it has not undergone any modifications.

Preparing to go hunting

Mating begins in March, and the period of permitted spring production lasts from March 1 to June 16 for 10 days. To make good use of the time available, you should start preparing in advance.

Organizational events

Check the availability and validity of hunting documents - registration takes time, and failure to do so can lead to trouble in the form of fines and other penalties. The mandatory list includes:

• hunting license;
• weapons permit;
• license.

Capercaillie is a licensed species of hunting resource, so you should be careful when preparing permits.

Weapons for hunting wood grouse

You can shoot wood grouse with smooth-bore and rifled weapons. There is only a limitation on the charge. You cannot use shot larger than 5 mm or bullets. In practice, semi-automatic shotguns or 12-gauge double-barreled shotguns are most often used.. The choice of weapon and caliber is purely individual, the main condition is good accuracy and sharpness of the battle. Try to zero your weapon to determine the best shooting distance.

If you choose between a double-barreled shotgun and a semi-automatic, the first option is preferable. Automation can fail at the most inopportune moment, and a double-barreled shotgun allows you to fire a second shot if you miss.

Search for current

Experienced hunters, as a rule, already know the breeding places of this bird, but according to established traditions, they do not advertise this. Their secret places they pass it on as an inheritance to the next generations from their dynasty, or to very close friends.

Beginners will have the difficult task of finding their own lek that is not occupied by other hunters. Knowing the behavior of birds during the mating season will be your guide.

Showing

During the mating season, to attract a female, wood grouse take special poses, show off their bright feathered outfit, sing inviting mating songs, and organize real tournaments and fights among themselves. By the nature of the sounds produced, you can determine to whom the rooster is giving the signal - an aggressive cackling is a threat and challenge to the opponent, and a calling song is an expression of passion and attracting a female. The capercaillie starts the game sitting on a tree and then goes down. On earth, during the mating ritual, the rooster often flies up like a candle with the loud flapping of its wings, trying to increase attention to its person.

Wood grouse always display in one place, which must meet certain conditions. Bird fights require free space, while the instinct of self-preservation requires the ability to quickly respond to external threats.

Clean forest areas, where there are no thickets of bushes and tall grasses, are best suited for this. When coniferous forests, serving as the favorite habitats of wood grouse, are located next to swamps; lekking sites are set up in the outlying areas of swamps, or on islands with sparse coniferous trees.

True signs

Even before the start of the mating season, wood grouse take their places on the leks. The males begin a kind of rehearsal. In poses that are distinguished by pomp and importance, they proudly walk through the snow, tracing tracks with lowered wings. These tracks are an important sign that the hunter should focus on. Some males display on tree branches, moving in one direction or the other. Scatterings of needles and piles of droppings on the snow under a tree are another sure sign that there will soon be mating games in this place.

The most reliable way to determine the place of mating is to listen in the evening.. When, after a thorough examination of the territory, you have identified promising areas, try to approach them within 200 meters at dusk and wait for the arrival of males. The sharp sounds of the wings accompanying their arrival will make it possible to determine the number of wood grouse planning to mating here. You need to behave with extreme caution so as not to give away your presence. If something alerts a wood grouse, it will fly from place to place to feel safe. These flights will confuse you and you will not be able to count the number of birds.

Subtleties of capercaillie hunting for leks

The hunting process is divided into two stages - approach and shooting at the target. Each of them has its own secrets and features, the knowledge of which and the precision of execution determine the outcome of the event.

How to approach the current?

Well, the long-awaited and exciting exit for a unique trophy has arrived. Almost night darkness still reigns in the forest, and you need to quietly approach the treasured place. The birds are still sleeping, but nevertheless, you will have to walk very carefully so as not to wake them up ahead of time. A route previously studied during the day is unrecognizable at night, and already at the approach stage a lot of surprises await you.

The task is to approach the current source at a distance of 150-200 meters, and then wait for the start of the mysterious ritual.

When the silhouettes of trees gradually appear against the background of the brightening sky, you will hear the clicking of a capercaillie. In the silence of a sleeping forest, the sounds of his song can be clearly heard from a great distance. After the first sound, the cockerel pauses and then continues to click more confidently and frequently: “tek - silence - tek-tek - silence - tek-tek-tek.” Hunters call this the first stage of the capercaillie song, during which it very sensitively picks up all extraneous noises. Under no circumstances should you make noise or move at this moment, so as not to scare the bird away.

And now the capercaillie moves on to the second step - turning. It is difficult to describe in words what this sound, which is commonly called skirking, resembles. Hearing it for the first time, you might even get scared, it’s so unusual. The rooster repeats the song more passionately each time, moving from the first to the second leg. Clicking takes about 5 seconds, and skimming is even shorter, only 3-4 seconds. And only in these seconds, when the wood grouse skids, can you approach. You will have time to take one or two steps, no more, during this short period, during which the capercaillie loses vigilance and hears nothing. Once the flick starts, you need to freeze and continue the approach on the next flick.

To walk 100-150 meters undetected, you will have to muster all your endurance, patience, and resourcefulness. You need to have physical endurance, have strong nerves and great response. The capercaillie has excellent eyesight and the slightest movement will attract its attention. Sometimes hunters, trying to save time, do not take steps, but move in jumps. At the same time, the speed of approach increases, but the risk of being noticed also increases.

Important to remember! Not every capercaillie on a lek behaves actively. There are young cockerels who, sitting on the branches, silently watch the picture, learning from their experience. And there are also old silent roosters.

In the excitement of tracking down a singing individual, you may inadvertently scare away a silent bird or even a female who has flown to the call. A disturbed bird will flutter noisily and unexpectedly in front of you, and in the end all your efforts will be in vain. When you freeze in anticipation of new signals, carefully look around to exclude an unfortunate accident.

Approaching the shooting distance (ideally it should be 35-40 meters) is the most difficult thing. During this time, you will experience the whole range of feelings - excitement, excitement, annoyance and delight will accompany you along the way, replacing each other. Now it's time to shoot.

How to aim at a wood grouse?

The best position for successfully hitting a target is one in which the capercaillie is turned to you with one side. The bird is not a small one, so it is difficult to miss in this situation, despite the poor visibility in the early morning. Don't rush, take your time.

If you moved to the sounds of the second leg of the song, you should also prepare for the shot. There is very little left. Accurate sighting and shutter release accompanied by the song of a capercaillie - and now the desired trophy is in your hands.

The Unwritten Code of the Hunter

There are strict rules among hunters that are not spelled out in any law. This is caused by many reasons, one of which is the abundance in the forest random people, far from ethics and morality. A true hunter must know that:

1. You should not show currents to random people.
2. You need to have a sense of proportion and not strive for quantity. After removing the trophy, return home. You shouldn’t walk around the breeding ground and try to take a few more roosters.
3. There's no hurry. An unsuccessful shot results in a wounded animal, and a wounded capercaillie can fly very far. Why doom a bird to a painful death?
4. At least half of the singing capercaillie on the lek must be left alive.
5. You should not go to the current daytime, and in the area you cannot shoot at other birds and animals. Try to be as quiet as possible.

Hunting wood grouse in the spring on a lek is a real event. And the picture of the ancient sacrament of the marriage ritual is simply amazing. And it’s even a pity that the finale is a gun shot, ending the life of another beautiful bird. Officially, this fishing is permitted, but now many hunters refuse to hunt capercaillie during this period for ethical reasons. They take with them a video camera or a photo gun instead of a weapon, and their trophy is successful rare footage and priceless time of unity with nature. You can taste the delicious capercaillie meat later, because hunting for upland game is open at other times.

Territory of wood grouse.

As you know, the capercaillie is a typical sedentary bird. In the deep forest, where human presence is minimal, lives the owner of the forest - the wood grouse. This forest has long been divided into sections and each section is strictly guarded by its owner. In summer and early autumn, they gain strength here and feed heavily on berries, leaves and young shoots of trees. They survive the winter here, switching to feeding on pine needles. And only in spring the voice of their ancestors calls them to leave their area and go to places where a great mystery of nature occurs, hidden from prying eyes - the capercaillie current.

Evening before the current.

Shortly before sunset, loud flapping of wings begins to be heard at the lekking site. It is wood grouse who fly to their favorite trees to spend the night here, on the lek. Some fly, and some come on foot. By counting the loud flapping of wings, you can roughly estimate the number of birds arriving.

The current is a pine forest, in the center of which is a low-lying sphagnum bog. The edges of the swamp are bordered by hills covered with mosses, lichens, blueberries and other plants. There are also pine trees on the hills, as well as some birch and spruce. The current stretches hundreds of meters in length and it is very difficult to guess where its center will be.

2. Capercaillie current

But let's return to the wood grouse. Having settled down on a pine tree, the wood grouse begin to sing. The song of the wood grouse is well described in the literature and consists of clicks accelerating in time, turning into the so-called. “turning”. From time to time, the wood grouse interrupts its song and begins to feed on pine needles.

2. Capercaillie on a tree

The sun is gradually approaching sunset. Below, under the pines, in the bushes of blueberries, lingonberries and wild rosemary, hazel grouse have arrived to dine. In the gathering darkness it is difficult to see the dark figures of wood grouse, but you can hear them perfectly. We fall asleep together to wake up early in the morning, at 4 o'clock.

On current

It is very quiet at night, but the forest lives its own life. Somewhere in the distance you can hear the cries of cranes, a mallard duck flew overhead, and then a flock of geese. A woodcock flew by with a familiar “grunt.”

Wood grouse in the forest are among the first to wake up. Already after 4 am you can hear the first cautious clicks. By the time the veil of night begins to slide, wood grouse noisily descend to the ground and occupy their current areas. The main task for this morning is to attract females with your appearance and protect your territory from competitors.

3. Capercaillie in its lekking area

The wood grouse's current is not only an easily recognizable “singing”. During the current, the capercaillie makes “flights”, flying low above the ground and defiantly flapping its wings loudly. Such flapping of wings can be heard hundreds of meters away, while their “singing” is quite quiet. The capercaillie does not stand in one place, it walks along its territory, and at the borders of the area it can start a fierce fight with a neighboring rooster. Such a fight can be heard very far away, strong beats of wings are heard and feathers fly around. As a result, some males have a combative appearance, with their heads covered in bruises and protruding feathers.

4. "Approach" of the capercaillie

Arrival of females.

Females arrive to the lek early in the morning. Their arrival can be determined by their voice, when “ko-ko-ko-ko” is heard from the treetops. The place where the females will fly will be the center of the entire current. All the males can gather around this place, but the females will choose the best one.

5. Female capercaillie

The arriving females chose one, the best male in their opinion, and crowded around him. I counted 6 females. They circled around their gentleman, and he proudly walked alongside. In order for the gentleman to pay attention to them, the females took inviting poses. This picture unfolded in the center of a swamp, overgrown with low-growing bushes. Among this bush it was very difficult to see the females; they blended very much with the surrounding biotope. Only male capercaillie stand out well with their blackness, proudly walking through the swamp with their heads raised and tail fluffed.

6. Main lek with females

7. Main lek with females

8. Main lek with females

In total, during these days we counted a maximum of 15 males, but it is likely that there were more of them throughout the entire lek. But only one had the luck of mating that day; the rest of the males were actively mating in their areas, but nothing was going to happen to them.

End of current.

The mating continues until 10-11 am. The females and some males fly away first. The remaining roosters remain and continue to crow. Some immediately fly up into the trees and, in between “songs,” begin to feed. Some birds leave the lek on foot. By 11 the current dies down. Other sounds of the forest become audible - the sound of the wind, the songs of blackbirds, the roll call of tufted titmice, the cackling of geese flying north. The morning on the current is over.

9. At the end of the current, wood grouse rest and feed in the trees

Wood grouse spend daytime in feeding areas. They feed on pine needles, berries left over from last autumn, and fresh buds. The unique structure of the digestive system of grouse birds allows them to process rough food (branches, pine needles) and thereby survive harsh frosty winters. To better grind coarse food, wood grouse swallow small gastrolith stones, which act as millstones. Therefore, during the day, wood grouse can be found somewhere along the road or on the river bank, where they collect such pebbles.

10. There are a lot of necessary stones on the roads

A little about photography.

The dream of being on a capercaillie lek came true in the north of Belarus. Three days (or rather three evenings, nights and mornings) spent on the edge of the swamp are comparable in value to a year of ordinary city life for me. These are new impressions, new knowledge, new acquaintances.

The first two days on the lek were not very successful in terms of photography. On the first day, I sat in a hiding place, near which none of the wood grouse spent the night. In the morning a couple of males flew in and came, but it was not possible to take good pictures. On the second day, I moved to another place, where two people before me had well filmed one current worker. Another failure - all the males left their personal areas and rushed to the center of the lek, where the females flew. And only on the third day I found myself in a good place for filming, but the limit of luck with the weather was over. On this day the weather deteriorated and light rain began. The activity of wood grouse decreases in bad weather, especially when strong winds rise. I was lucky that there was no wind, so the birds were mating, although not as active as in previous days. As a result, I was able to photograph wood grouse, incl. with females, although all the birds were wet and less active.

11. Showing capercaillie.

Acknowledgments

I thank Dmitry Shamovich for the opportunity to fulfill my dream - to visit a capercaillie lek. It was very nice to just talk and I learned a lot of new things. Thanks to Alexey Sorokin for organizing the trip and warm company. We had a great time in the forest :). Thanks to Alla Nikolaevna Khoren for the hospitality and delicious pancakes.

We publish excerpts from most interesting article capercaillie specialists. The information contained in it, even for many experienced hunters, will probably be unexpected and inconsistent with generally accepted ideas about the biology of the capercaillie and the characteristics of the capercaillie current. We hope that this publication will be useful for all, without exception, lovers of wood grouse hunting.

This report is the result of ten years (1970...1980) of research into the behavior of wood grouse during the spring lek in the Kineshma Trans-Volga region, Ivanovo region (the border of the southern taiga).

Observations were carried out from hidden shelters built on the currents, raised to a height of 3-4 m to improve visibility. To obtain comparative data, control observations were periodically carried out on neighboring small currents. Some birds were caught and tagged.

Questions of the biology of the common capercaillie are covered in a number of works by our and foreign researchers. They characterize important aspects of the reproduction of a polygamous species, the relationship of populations with environmental conditions, etc. However, studies of the mating life of birds are fragmentary. The main goal of our work is to study intra-population relationships that determine the sustainable existence of capercaillie populations...

In the phenology of the spring mating of wood grouse, three periods are clearly distinguished, differing in their significance for the current reproductive cycle.

The first is the early spring period. In our hospital setting, this is March and the first ten days of April. There is an awakening and growth of lekking activity, a concentration of males in the area of ​​the lekking area, the area of ​​which is regularly distributed among the males claiming to participate in reproduction. The boundaries of individual territories are determined. As a result, by the beginning of the “organized” departure to the mating grounds of wood grouse, a clear spatial distribution of males occurs, which has great biological meaning, since females are provided with optimal conditions for choosing sexual partners.

The second period constitutes the peak of current activity. Over the years of our observations, this is on average the second, sometimes third ten days of April. The period is characterized by the highest activity of males and mating of birds, which in a friendly spring occurs in a very short time - three to five days.

The third period is characterized by a sharp decline in the marriage activity of the best producers. Against this background, the activity of relatively young males increases; this period serves as a kind of rehearsal for mating, i.e. preparation for reproductive processes in subsequent springs. Single matings of young males with individual “Late” females are not excluded, but this has practically no effect on the reproduction of the lek group.

Observations of changes in the individual behavior of males from the moment of their first appearance at the breeding ground until they reached the dominant rank allowed us to identify the following age categories of birds.

Yearlings are relatively regularly present at the lek, especially during the mating season. They do not have individual territories, they move freely around other people’s territories and are indispensable spectators of all acute situations in the mating area (fights, mating, demonstrative threats, etc.). Yearlings stay mostly in groups, including in company with wood grouse, which completely ignore them. They appear on the lek in the morning, less often in the evening. Dominant males are extremely tolerant of them, even in close proximity. For the population, this is a reserve of the breeding fund, the implementation of which, given favorable conditions, is possible in three to four years. Yearlings are easily distinguished from older birds by their general “childish” appearance, uneven (toothed) fan of unfolded tail, and incomplete forms of “ritual” behavior.

Two-year-old males differ from the previous group by increased aggressiveness towards peers and a more cautious attitude towards older males age groups, in connection with which they prefer to stay at a distance from them in the lekking area or in trees, where they are rarely pursued. They annoyingly look after capercaillie, which gave rise to a number of researchers (Kirikov, 1952, Kisilev, 1971, etc.) to conclude that young birds participate in reproduction. During 10 years of stationary observations of the behavior of birds at the lek, we did not note matings of one-year-old and two-year-old males with capercaillie. They do not have their own areas on the lek and move freely throughout the entire territory. In the final period of mating, they begin to actively sing in the trees. There is an emerging trend towards asserting one's own status and securing territory. Even when attachment to a certain area on the lek is determined, there is still no individual territory on the ground, but peers who happen to be nearby are expelled from such areas.

Three-year-old males have individual territories, but at the beginning of mating, disturbances in the correct and regular presence on them are possible. The area of ​​the site is determined by age, the aggressiveness of neighboring males and is usually small, especially if it is in the center of the lek. In relation to neighbors who are equal in strength (experience), there are many demonstrations and fights are possible. In case of violation of the boundaries of the territory by a dominant individual, complete submission is shown to it; sometimes demonstrations of threat are observed, but from a safe distance. This is not due to differences in physical strength (a three-year-old male is a fully formed individual), but rather due to lack of self-confidence. With the beginning of the organized flight of capercaillie to the mating grounds, three-year-old males sing not only on par with the “old” ones, but also more actively than them (a similar phenomenon is observed not only in the capercaillie, but also in some species of passerine birds, when single males sing much more enthusiastically than those who managed to form a pair). They often sing on the ground, and, like more mature birds, there are many display signal jumps. In years when the percentage of capercaillie breeding is high, individual three-year-old males participate in breeding.

Four-year-old males are pretender males; they fly out to mating regularly. The males are aggressive towards the neighbor who enjoys the greatest success with wood grouse and try to expand their territory at the expense of his territory, hence the frequent and lengthy “conflict” demonstrations, sometimes ending in brutal fights. Pretentious males take part partially in reproduction. Their excessive ardor often scares away wood grouse.

Dominant males (five or more years old) belong to the elite breeding males. Before the mass flight of capercaillie and males of younger age groups to the mating grounds, they spend a lot of time on the ground (snow), defending the boundaries of individual territories from the claims of neighbors, and by the mating period they have a clear spatial distribution. “Song activity” is probably not an indicator of the male’s hierarchical place in reproduction and is relatively small already during the mating period.

The dominant male provides many elements of ritual courtship to females who find themselves in his area. After the end of the flight of wood grouse, the current activity drops sharply.

It should be noted that even in the group, the elite produces continuous competition for the right to the best.

Individual birds are partially or completely excluded from reproduction, and in an undisturbed population of capercaillie, males who have reached the age of four years can participate in the reproduction process.

Thus, before a male becomes a valuable unit of the breeding fund, he goes through a long path of individual development according to the “social” laws of the population.

Loss of the capercaillie population from natural causes is very high. There are few accurate data on the life expectancy of capercaillie in nature. Only a few individuals survive up to 5..7 years of age (Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, 1959; Romanov, 1979). Several ringed birds were caught at the age of about 10 years. The maximum age recorded in the enclosures of the Darwin Nature Reserve is 13 years. According to Nemtsev (oral communication), who has been studying the bird in captivity for many years, the male remains in physical prime for three to eight years. Our observations in nature have shown that the maximum lifespan of a male is close to ten years.

In the current we observed, the annual losses of males with their own territory amounted to 10...15% of their number. In this case, the lekking community exists indefinitely, which indicates the rate of turnover of the reproductive herd of males.

The high losses in the capercaillie population observed in younger age groups drop sharply among birds that have reached 3 years of age. It is due to this age group that the reproductive core of males is formed in subsequent years.

The death of the main leks is a significant loss for the population, so additional removal of them during hunting can lead to complete degradation of the lek (Ostrovsky, 1974; Romanov, 1979; Dronseiko, Nemnonov, 1980).

There is an idea that birds are distributed on a lek according to the following pattern: high-ranking individuals (leakers) are concentrated in the center, and young birds are concentrated in the periphery. This opinion is fair, but often does not reflect the actual situation, but only a trend in their placement.

The distribution of dominant birds in relation to each other at low currents is difficult to trace clearly, although there is a general pattern here too.

The order of distribution of wood grouse is determined by several important points in the life of a lek group: the individual territory of the male of the dominant group reaches 200 m or more (in diameter) and is clearly assigned to him, but is used unevenly, the rooster visits certain places relatively rarely; aggressiveness towards a low-ranking individual appears by a dominant bird only when the first of them directly tries to threaten the “authority” of the second; The change of generations of males on lek does not always have the character of a correct annual replacement of individuals retiring due to old age. The background on the lek creates a generation of males that appears every few years (in the conditions of our hospital - once every three years). Intermediate generations are either completely absent or represented only sporadically.

A current group that includes all age categories is an extremely rare phenomenon. The distance gap between the nearest generations of males obviously determines their noticeable physical and physiological inequality.

The order of distribution of the male at a particular mating site is essentially very simple. Since birds, including those with their own territory, always have weakly guarded areas on the lek, the young male tries to gain a foothold on them. At the same time, he, as it were, superimposes his micro-area on the individual territory of the bird of the highest rank. The owner of this territory pays main attention to worthy opponents. In the event of threatening behavior on the part of a dominant individual, the young bird immediately retreats, without causing a stable negative reaction in the formidable enemy to its close proximity. But even now the young male zealously protects his territory from invasions comparable in strength to the males.

After two or three years, having reached mature age and having now secured his own individual territory, the male actively “presses” his neighbors, including his aging “territory partner.”

Thus, against the background of the general high aggressiveness of males, the principle of placing them on the lek is intended to smooth out, as far as possible, the severity of competition between them. Moreover, individuals of the highest rank are often simply isolated from each other, which undoubtedly contributes to the maximum use of their reproductive capacity. Polygamy of the capercaillie, therefore, not only presupposes strict sexual selection of males, but also prevents the manifestation of elements of anarchy in this process, introducing a natural order into it.

However, in some years, weather conditions can become so favorable for reproduction, survival and growth of young animals that a powerful and large generation of males appears. In such cases, there is a tendency to “compress” the described age ranking scheme. Competition among dominant birds will intensify and, as a consequence, the forced elimination of current patriarchs. The composition of producers will, on average, become younger. The best breeders for mating are eliminated especially intensively in cases where the sex ratio is clearly disturbed in favor of males, which usually occurs against the background of a generally high population. The stress tensions that arise as a result of an overabundance of males inflate the current group as a whole, leading to disruptions in the “correct” behavior of even the most experienced individuals (both males and females). The sharply increased aggressiveness of dominant birds finds a way out in frequent conflicts, ending in brutal fights, sometimes leading to the death of the most valuable producers.

The overall high activity of birds can be visually assessed as favorable for reproduction, however, only the staffing of the lek with males of older age groups, a clear order in their distribution, average level activity and a small number of conflict situations between males determine the success of reproduction.

In conclusion of the review devoted to males, it should be noted that the number of dominant individuals in a lek is quite stable over time, which perhaps corresponds to some optimal saturation of breeding males in an elementary population united by a common lek. It is obvious that social factors play an important role in this process.

Our observations of the behavior of capercaillie on a lek are general and fragmentary due to the methodological complexity of conducting similar works. In the initial period of mating, capercaillie spend a lot of time in close proximity from the current. They live here in small stable groups, sometimes consisting of adult birds and several young one-year-old females. The same groups quite constantly meet in the area of ​​the mating area, but before mating begins, they avoid the courtship of males. The presence of roosters nearby probably stimulates the physiological preparation of females for reproduction.

During the second period of mating, capercaillie fly out in an organized manner in the early morning hours (very rarely in the evening) to the mating area, where they willingly unite in herds of five to six (sometimes more) birds. The period of direct sexual heat of the female is very short and lasts no more than two to three days, and therefore, in friendly springs, mating takes place in just a few days. The flight of birds without currents stops abruptly.

The response of capercaillie to male courtship is individual. While older females mate, most young females are indifferent to the rooster. An intermediate group can also be traced - the female seems to be ready to receive a rooster, but acts uncertainly. However, some wood grouse mate.

We have repeatedly observed females flying to mating grounds to a specific rooster. At the same time, the capercaillie with a characteristic clucking approach approaches the lek, flies through several individual territories, sits on a tree and, having quickly determined the location of the male it is interested in, flies to him.

In our opinion, the tendency of wood grouse to lek in groups contributes to the targeted breeding of young females by older ones towards the most experienced males.

The importance of females of different ages in the process of reproduction can be assessed by examining their nesting. The available information is extremely contradictory regarding the timing (beginning, completion), intervals between the laying of each egg, the size of the clutch, the duration of incubation, the attachment of females to the nest, and the ability to preserve the brood.

Capercaillie fly out to the lek on days of rapid snow melting in the forest, but only if the timing of the melting coincides with the average calendar dates of this phenomenon. According to our observations, birds do not follow the lead of the weather even in the case of a clear shift in the main phenological phenomena to the early stages. The mating period begins in this case at the usual time for average spring, or shifts extremely slightly. Later reproduction due to a delay in spring, on the contrary, is a common phenomenon.

The timing of physiological readiness of females is directly dependent on the physical parameters of the environment and is evolutionarily programmed. A clear implementation of the hereditary program is possible in the case when all the factors necessary for half-preparing the organism for reproduction optimally coincide in time: air temperature, clearing of the soil from under the snow, the appearance of specific spring mosquitoes, the length of daylight hours, the level of behavioral activity of the population, etc. . If individual leading factors do not coincide, the individual readiness of females for reproduction becomes desynchronized, the mechanism of mutual stimulation is disrupted, and the reproductive mood of the population as a whole is disrupted. Some birds potentially capable of reproducing are unmarried or reproduce with deviations from the norm. Previously breeding females are helped by previous experience, moreover, on the basis of more mature physiology.

One of the powerful stimuli for female reproduction is the presence of a nest (its base). The practical sedentism of the bird suggests that for an adult female, its primary area of ​​residence is the former nesting site. According to our observations, some capercaillie choose a place even before the snow melts, which they finally specify after the first hummocks appear from under the snow. All further stages of nesting activity follow each other in proper order. In young wood grouse without experience, reproduction is not successful due to the lack of a preparatory “base” (nest). In the area of ​​the lek, we found lost capercaillie eggs - a phenomenon characteristic of young females of many bird species.

We also noted cases where wood grouse abandoned eggs without any particular reason. The reason, in our opinion, was not the accidental one-time raising of the females from the nest, since they calmly continued to incubate even after we placed a camera under the nest, connected by a hose to the actograph.

Such important indicators as attachment to the nest and brood, which individually characterize the capercaillie, are very variable and are determined not only by environmental factors, but also by the experience (age) of the individual. Nemtsev (1973) believes that the capercaillie becomes a full-fledged reproducer at the age of at least three years. Our observations in nature confirm this opinion.

According to the degree of importance for the reproduction of wood grouse in nature, they can be divided into three categories:

The first is that first-year capercaillies do not take part in breeding. While individual matings are possible, reproductive success is ultimately negligible. Such females lose eggs and abandon clutches;

The second is capercaillie rehearsing for breeding (about two years old). They mate and have clutches, but their attachment to the nest is weak. A slight disturbance is often enough to cause the female to abandon the nest. In addition, she is inexperienced in choosing a place for a nest and in leading a brood. During this period, wood grouse gain some experience and become established in a specific habitat area. In the enclosures of the Darwin Nature Reserve, 57% of two-year-old females participated in breeding (Nemtsev, 1973).

The third is the breeding stock itself (at least three years old). Potentially ready for maximum realization of their own productive ability.

In conclusion of the review on wood grouse, a few words about repeated, compensatory clutches - a phenomenon common for many species of birds. The so-called “repeated” layings, in our opinion, are just belated first ones. Thus, calculating the time required for the beginning and completion of repeated oviposition completely eliminates it.

Thus, late broods that are sometimes noted should be assessed as errors of individual males, the reproduction of which does not make sense to be taken into account when assessing the reproductive success of a population.

The most productive part - the core of the reproductive herd - are females aged three or more years and males four to five years old. However, when considering the population in its dynamics, we cannot completely forget the relatively young birds; their participation in reproduction in certain periods is also not excluded.

The sex ratio in the reproductive herd is biased in favor of females. Counting capercaillie at leks is very difficult, so in our calculations we proceeded from the number of matings of the dominant male during the spring, which even for the best roosters at the lek did not exceed five to six times. The experiment proved that one mating is enough for a female to lay a full clutch (Kirpichev, 1965; Nemtsev, 1973). However, we have reason to believe that the capercaillie mates more than once during the spring. The most careful calculation gives us the following ratio of males and females: 1:3 – 1:4. Excluding young females from the calculation, we obtain a ratio of 1:2 for the reproductive nucleus. For a small current, the visual estimate of the number of females per male is approximately twice as high as a large one, and accordingly the sex ratio here is 1:4.

Romanov (1979) expresses the opinion that in the event of departure to the current large quantity It is difficult for male capercaillie to fertilize each of them. In addition, not every visually marked “mount” of a male means actually completed copulation. Nemtsev (oral communication) provides data that the second mating of a male in the morning increases the likelihood of unfertilized eggs appearing in the clutch. The fertilizing ability of the male is fairly evenly distributed over time due to the uniform readiness of the females for mating. At the same time, in the event of a friendly flight of capercaillie to the mating grounds, the females that are most valuable for the population are the first to go, i.e. mature. When caring for birds in a herd, the rooster always gives preference to the most prepared female. In the relationship between the sexes, it is extremely important that the “tactful” male does not force the female to mate, which maximizes the efficiency of fertilization.

The “social” organization of two currents located in relative proximity, while maintaining the correct structure, may differ in detail. Thus, for small leks, compared to large ones, the presence of a small number of young males and, accordingly, a slightly higher average age current workers. Obviously, young males gravitate more toward large leks, where they receive more complete information about species-typical forms of behavior.

In general, due to a better complement of females, greater balance and long-term individual acquaintance of males, the number of serious conflicts between them at low currents is reduced, which in the long term determines better prerequisites for reproduction.

For the population, intensive redistribution of young males throughout the territory is undoubtedly beneficial. Their concentration to certain limits improves the quality of selection of producers.

A noticeable shift in the sex ratio in favor of females at low currents indicates their more conservative attitude to the habitat than that of young males (the strict sedentism of old females is beyond doubt).

Ramanov (1979) points out that wood grouse older than a year are the most mobile part of the population. It is well known for “sedentary populations” that redistribution across the territory occurs primarily due to young individuals beginning to reproduce for the first time. This is also typical for the capercaillie population. In capercaillie, sexual interest awakens at the age of two, and therefore they move intensively in search of leks and nesting sites.

Any interference in the life of the current group may affect the staffing of the current group with producers. In this case, old females can move intensively around the territory in search of a suitable male. At the same time, long-distance flights with a change in the main habitat are not excluded. The exceptional fastidiousness of wood grouse when choosing a male (Nemtsev, 1973) also contributes to this.

At a low lek, we conducted an experiment on the simultaneous removal of all leks before the morning departure of the females. Having discovered the absence of partners, the capercaillie raised a real commotion. Some of them reappeared in the early evening. The next morning there was not a single capercaillie on the lek. Obviously, the interests of the females were reoriented to another territory.

Having defined in general outline conditions conducive to the redistribution of birds, we note that we did not encounter two large currents in close proximity. It is common to distribute several small currents within the range of the main current. This phenomenon is quite natural and promotes the exchange of individuals within the region, while increasing the genotypic heterogeneity of the population as a whole. A stimulator for more or less intense metabolism can be the bird population density, fluctuating below and above the optimal level.

Thus, the current is a relatively autonomous, elementary subdivision of the social organism of the population, existing against the backdrop of a certain natural environment and designed to avoid “chaos”, streamline the reproductive process and ensure high quality offspring. Unlike the monogamous family of hazel grouse, where the quality of the offspring is determined by a relatively random selection of pairs of sires (against the background of accelerated circulation of the reproductive herd), the quality of the offspring of the capercaillie is determined at the level of the lek group.

Information about the location of the lek is traditionally passed on from the “elders” to the “younger” and is firmly stored in the individual memory of each individual. This tradition turns out to be so strong that for many years the birds, if the minimum conditions for existence have been preserved, fly even to a cleared-out lek.

The set of properly functioning currents, along with the obligatory exchange of individuals between them, guarantees the stable existence of the population over time.

In the recent past, against the backdrop of a fairly high population of capercaillie in many areas, insignificant local shooting could not significantly reduce the reproductive potential of the population. The losses were easily compensated by the influx of birds from the immediate vicinity to the breeding grounds. Now, with the extremely low population density of capercaillie in some areas, even a single removal is a significant loss for the population. This is one of the reasons for the disappearance of the bird where a sufficient set of favorable conditions has been preserved for its existence. Every easily accessible current today should become the object of special protection.

The evolutionary development of the capercaillie proceeded without the influence of man as a factor sharply limiting the possibility of the existence of the species. From total number 10...15% of territorial birds are lost annually due to various natural reasons. Additional withdrawal of the same amount of currents can lead to degradation of the current. "

E.G. Dronseiko, N.N. Nemnonov, Central Research Laboratory of Game Management and Nature Reserves of Glavohoty of the RSFSR (USSR). Sat. Materials of the International Conference on Wood Grouse. M., Rosselkhozizdat, 1984., pp. 42-55.

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