64. Hazel Grouse (Tetrastes bonasia)

The Hazel Grouse is a small sedentary (like all the grouse species covered so far) grouse which lives in damp coniferous woodland. It is very widespread across Eurasia, occurring in northern, central and southeastern pasrts of Europe, but due to its cryptic plumage and secretive nature can be quite hard to see.

Hazel Grouse, ©Snowmanradio, via Wikimedia Commons.

Hazel Grouse sketch.

Oh dear, not happy with this one at all. The problem is when I see complexly-patterned plumage like this it tends to make me panic about depicting it accurately within the given time (which is pretty much impossible, but a passable approximation is probably doable) and thus cock up the drawing.