Important Plants for Sharp-tailed Grouse
Sharp-tailed grouse are a highly adaptable species that utilize a wide variety of plant species for food and cover throughout the year.
Generally speaking, grassland grouse are not the most adaptable critters. Both prairie chicken species need large expanses of grassland, while sage grouse must have large expanses of sagebrush to thrive. The one exception to this rule is the sharp-tailed grouse.
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While generally considered a grassland species, sharpies range from the shrub-scrub grasslands in Wisconsin through the vast prairies of the northern U.S. Great Plains and Canada, culminating in the shrublands of Alaska. That’s a huge geographic range, encompassing a wide variety of habitats, meaning there are lots of plants that are important to sharptails. That said, some plants stand out above all others, and they are found and utilized across most of this bird’s vast range.
Read More: Complete Guide to Sharp-tailed Grouse Hunting
While the focus of the article is on specific important plants, certain structure types contain a matrix of plants that are vital to sharp-tailed survival. Let’s dive into these essential plants and community structures to better understand sharp-tailed grouse biology. As a bonus, we can use this information to become more successful sharptail hunters.
Plant Species Sharp-tailed Grouse Rely On
| Species | Identification | Type of Plant | Relevance to Sharp-tailed Grouse |
| Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) | Bunchgrass with bluish bases. Read more. | Grass | Nesting habitat, fall food source and loafing habitat |
| Sideoats Grama (Bouteloua curtipendula) | Grass that grows in bunches with distinctive oat-looking seeds that dangle to one side. Read more. | Grass | Nesting habitat, fall food source and loafing habitat |
| Wheatgrass (Triticeae spp.) | A wide variety of grass species that grow in bunches and have flat leaves and small awns. Read more. | Grass | Nesting habitat, fall food source and loafing habitat |
| Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) | Bushy plant with compound leaves and green flowers. Read more. | Forb | Brooding habitat and fall/winter food source |
| Annual Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) | Broad, stalking plant with large yellow flowers and black or dark brown heads. Read more. | Forb | Brooding habitat and fall/winter food source |
| Silvery Scurfpea (Pediomelum argophyllum) | Herbaceous plant with silver leaves and dark blue or violet flowers. Read more. | Forb | Brooding habitat and fall/winter food source |
| Leadplant (Amorpha canescens) | Rare prairie shrub with spiky purple flowers and many delicate, soft green leaves. Read more. | Forb transitioning into a woody shrub as it ages | Brooding habitat and fall/winter food source |
| Prairie Rose (Rosa setigera) | Thorny, woody plant with five-petaled flowers in summer and bright red “hips” in the fall and winter. Read more. | Shrub that acts as a forb | Fall food source and cover |
| Clover (Trifolium spp.) | Mat-forming leafy plant growing familiar three-leafed pattern. Read more. | Forb | Early spring food source |
| Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) | Perennial legume with trifoliate leaves and purple flowers. Read more. | Forb | Chick food source with high density of insects |
| Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) | Pretty, short woody plant with dark green ovular leaves and white berry clusters in the fall. Read more. | Shrub | Summer and winter cover, fall food source |
| Buffaloberry (Shepherdia canadensis) | Nitrogen-fixing shrub with opposite, ovular leaves and fleshy red or yellow fruits. Read more. | Shrub | Summer and winter cover, fall food source |
| Cherry (Prunus spp.) | Woody plant with regularly toothed leaves and smooth, reddish-brown bark with many lenticels. Read more. | Shrub or small tree | Summer and winter cover, fall food source |
| Hazelnut (Corylus americana) | Woody plant with jagged, ovular leaves that grows in thickets. Read more. | Shrub or small tree | Fall and winter food source and cover on the fringes of sharptail habitat |
| Willow (Salix spp.) | Multi-stemmed, water-loving woody plant with linear, glossy leaves. Read more. | Ranges from groundcover to shrubs to small trees | Fall and winter food source and cover on the fringes of sharptail habitat |
| Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides) | Riverbottom tree species with thickly grooved, corky bark and triangular, aggressively serrated leaves. Read more. | Tree | Winter food source |
| Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) | Clonal tree species with white, powdery bark and circular, serrated leaves. Read more. | Tree | Spring food source |
Nesting and Brooding Plants
Nesting and brood habitat is a diverse matrix of grasses and forbs, or weeds. Some of the top grasses sharp-tailed hens use for nesting are little bluestem, sideoats grama, and various wheatgrass species. Little blue and sideoats are warm-season grasses and form clumps in which hens can conceal nests. Wheatgrasses are cool-season species, meaning they grow earlier in the spring and allow for early nesting cover. Large areas of these grasses are also critically important for fall feeding and loafing locations, meaning they are great places to target come hunting season.
Vital to the success of this entire reproductive adventure is proper brood habitat. Tiny young broods need bare ground between plants to stay dry and tons of insects to grow quickly. Plants like common ragweed, annual sunflower, silvery scurfpea, and leadplant (my all-time favorite plant) provide this kind of habitat, plus produce nutritious seeds for fall and winter. Above all these is the prairie rose.
While considered a woody plant or shrub, prairie roses functionally serve as forbs because they grow low to the ground. In the fall, they produce a nutritious fruit called hips. Prairie rose hips are very nutritious and are high in vitamin C. The plant is highly sought after for its food value and the occasional cover it provides. In fact, rose hips are so important to sharpies I bet that most birds shot in native grasslands will have hips in their crop or stomach contents.
Rose hips may also serve another function. Researchers in the upper Midwest speculated they function as grit where small pebbles are rare. Rose hips found in gizzards of harvested birds led to this conclusion.
All these species occur in a matrix on native grassland landscapes, allowing birds to travel only short distances to find available food and cover. Still, types of nonnative plants can also be very important for sharptails, especially nesting hens and broods. As hens are building up their body condition for the arduous task of producing and laying a full clutch of 10 to 14 eggs, they need early-growing plants that are high in nutrition. Clover, for instance, is high in protein and vitamin C, grows before warm season forbs, and can be ubiquitous in places.
Another outstanding nonnative forb is alfalfa. While I always promote the value of native plants over nonnative ones, I believe there is no finer forb for grassland grouse chicks, including sharptails, than alfalfa. Grouse hens travel long distances to take their broods to alfalfa fields because it has very nutritious leaves grouse eat as greens, and no other forb in sharpie range produces more insects than alfalfa.
Shrubs Important For Sharp-tailed Grouse Survival
Sharptails are the only prairie grouse that routinely use shrubs for cover and food, with the notable exception of the sage grouse, which, well, must have sagebrush. Shrubs are so crucial to sharptails that they’re a habitat requirement in much of their range.
The top shrubs across the northern Great Plains are snowberry, buffaloberry, and some species of cherries. These shrubs are thicket-forming and are sought out for summer and winter thermal cover and protection from predators. They also produce fruit relished by grouse as fall and early winter food sources.
Shrub thickets can be found scattered across the prairie, especially in coulees, swales, and slopes. Grouse love to loaf in them midday. Anytime you run across these thickets, they are must-hunt spots; approach them expecting a flush.
In other places, sharptails feed on the fall catkins and winter buds of hazelnut and willow. These are more important on the eastern fringes of their range up into Alaska. Not only do they provide food, but these shrubs and others provide valuable cover from predators.
Important Tree Species In Sharptail Habitat
Trees, you say?! With all the focus on the negative effects of trees on prairie grouse species, you might think I’m silly to say trees are important plants for sharpies. But let me explain. Certainly, not all trees are beneficial; cedars are an example of a shrub species that can be very detrimental to sharptail habitat. However, certain species provide valuable food resources in the late winter and early spring when the snow is deep and ground-based food is unavailable.
One excellent tree species for sharptails is eastern cottonwood. These trees produce a winter bud that is highly sought after by grouse. I’ve seen large numbers of sharpies budding in cottonwood trees in North Dakota, and this behavior is widely observed and photographed. The perching birds always have a sentry looking out for danger and are extremely difficult for a hunter to approach; ask me how I know.
Birds will travel from miles around to isolated clumps or rows of cottonwood. The isolated nature of most cottonwood stands doesn’t have much impact on sharptail survival. Other species of trees scattered across large acres of grassland habitat can be a problem.
Another tree that’s valuable to sharptails is aspen. Quaking aspens produce a nutritious and readily available bud. Plus, the newly growing green leaves of spring provide good forage. Aspens are most widely used by birds that live in the intermountain west, northern Canada, and Alaska, as well as high grassland landscapes at their interface with forests.
A portion of the sharp-tailed grouse population in mountainous landscapes are somewhat migratory. In these situations, they move to areas with more trees, especially aspen, to take advantage of food resources while the ones on their summer range are covered by snow.
Historically, a population of sharptail grouse migrated by the hundreds into the Shirley Basin of Wyoming in the late 1800s to feed on the vast aspen resources there. If you’ve recently been to Shirley Basin, you will find few large stands of aspen and no sharptailed grouse, a testament to a large reduction of sharp-tailed grouse numbers in the last 100 years and landscape-level change in forest composition in that area due to a variety of factors.
Sharptail Grouse Are An Amazingly Adaptable Prairie Grouse
I find the adaptability of sharp-tailed grouse amazing. Their ability to find resources to thrive from Nebraska to Alaska means they will likely be pretty successful for many years. That’s probably why this species is the most numerous and widespread of our prairie grouse species.
Despite the complexity of their habitat use, they are still easy to find and hunt as long as you target the right combinations of important plant species at the right time of year. Look for large areas of grasslands with lots of native forbs, especially rose hips, and patches of alfalfa. Also, hunt every snowberry, buffaloberry, and cherry thicket you can find from midmorning through the afternoon. If you hunt a migratory population that moves towards aspen stands as the snow flies, hunt the grassland-aspen interface, expecting birds to flush from the trees and the grass.
Make careful observations and take notes of locations where these important plants exist while sharp-tailed grouse hunting. Your knowledge of sharptail ecology will grow, and so will your hunting success.
Very nice article Frank.
Thank you!