In Finland, Hazel Grouse live in coniferous forests and eat buds, young shoots, and berries.
It has a small rounded head and fine bill, with grey, white, brown, and black plumage. Males have a short crest and feathered legs.
In the Italian Alps, wintering Hazel Grouse use forests containing hazel, Norway spruce and rowans. Young woods growing on former meadows and wood pastures provide feeding sites and dense cover.
A 2022 study collected droppings in an eastern Italian natural park during the winters of 2015–2016 and 2017–2018. DNA identified 43 birds from 216 samples, separating repeated traces of the same individual.
Diet analysis used 72 samples. Alongside plants including the hazel group and spruce, 35 contained arthropod DNA, including insects and spiders. These traces connected winter feeding with both trees and the small animals living around them.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The Italian study recommends retaining a mosaic of young and older woodland, conifers and broadleaved trees. Grouse evidence was less likely where ungulate browsing was intense. The authors recommend keeping ungulate numbers compatible with regeneration of food plants.