63. Caucasian Grouse (Lyrurus mlokosiewiczi)

I've reached the part of the Collins guide containing a whole bunch of Grouse and Partridges I know virtually nothing about - the next few pages are all species that are very unfamiliar and mysterious to me, so I'm looking forward to finding out more about them. It turns out that the first one, Caucasian Grouse, seems to be just generally quite mysterious to many people! I had a lot of trouble finding a photo - nothing much on Creative Commons - I then had a look at ARKive which informs me that 'The Caucasian grouse (Tetrao mlokosiewiczi) is one of the most elusive and least studied of all grouse species'. No shit ARKive. Eventually settled for this photo, from the website of what appears to be some kind of weird Russian pet shop?! With a bit of help from Google Translate, I found that the price of a Caucasian Grouse is apparently 'negotiable'. Ermmm.......!

Anyway! The Caucasian Grouse is very similar in appearance to the Black Grouse, but it has no white wingbars, a longer, straighter, forked tail and black rather than white undertail-coverts. The female Caucasian Grouse is greyer than the female Black Grouse, with a longer tail. Caucasian Grouse are endemic to the Greater and Lesser Caucasus mountain region and are found mainly in Russia and Georgia.

Caucasian Grouse, source: http://zooekz.ru/ptitcy/kuroobraznye/teterev-kavkazskiy

Caucasian Grouse sketch.

This isn't great - I've made his head a bit too big among other things. I used my new 7B pencil for most of it, along with a harder pencil for some of the lighter bits - I haven't really mixed up my pencils before now mainly because I didn't really have much of a range of pencils to play with, but I think I will from now on.