Males have sooty brownish-grey feathers with a ruff around its neck and a black bib outlined in white with red skin above each eye.

Grouse may switch to cranberry and other berries and leaves of Vaccinium, Empetrum, Rubus and other shrubs in their diet during the summer and fall months.

Other courtship performances include a soft trilling coo ascending in pitch, followed by jumping and twirling twice while wing-clapping midair.

One cause is their vulnerability to disease that affects wild and domestic birds alike, given how frigid the Russian taiga drops to during winter inhibits germs and pathogens from reproducing.

[8] Researcher Alexander Andreev observed the effect of predation pressure on Siberian spruce grouse in the winter, especially by owls, as they tend to avoid landing on snow at daytime and resorted to other safety precautions to minimize as much noise when moving.

Andreev also found that the Siberian grouse dispersed when night falls to avoid predation and flocked during the day to socialize.