I was able to capture this up in the BWCA in Minnesota. Normally this would be a tough photo to get. Grouse will fly away the second they see people. Luckily they didn't when I got closer. I was even more lucky that they continued their mating call even though I was only 20ft away.
I captured this at 279mm with the Sony 100-400 @5.6. The sun was going down so I capped my auto high ISO at 2500 which this photo was taken at.
I only had a few keeper shots from the bursts I took. The shutter I was at 1/125. I just couldn't go much faster. I already had my camera on for some time taking other photos in 80 degree weather so I knew noise was going to be an issue.
This is one of the final shots I got though. I could have done a vertical crop but I wanted to tell the story of how tight this shot was in the woods. I had little room to move and didn't want to get much closer.
The downed burch in the background is certainly distracting but you take what you can get in a situation like this.
Thanks for the view.