Western U.S.
Travel Diary 
2
May 2004
I really
really enjoy birds that gather at leks, which
are communal sites where the males display
for the
females in hopes of mating with one, or even
several. Take the Greater Sage
Grouse, for
example. This morning I'm in a blind near Walden,
Colorado, watching and
photographing about 75
males at their lek. Spread over several acres, they
strut,
call, and inflate air sacs on their chest, which
deflate with a deep booming sound. So
intent are they
on catching a female's eye that they are oblivious to
observers, allowing
long looks and easy photography.
The
blind is actually a trailer with most of one
side cut open, used by the Colorado
Department of
Wildlife for supervised public viewing of the lek. Five
other birders
and I gathered last night at the Moose
Creek Cookhouse & Saloon in Walden for a
great
barbecue meal, followed by a talk on the natural
history of Sage Grouse.
Ranging from Colorado to
Oregon, these 
birds occur wherever sagebrush
grows. The
toughest part about being a Sage
Grouse is surely winter, when they must tolerate the
bitter cold nights and subsist only on sagebrush
buds.
At 4:30 a.m. the van met us at our motels, and we
were driven to the lek. It's important to be in the blind
before first light so as not to upset the
birds. But to
be honest they were rather nonchalant about it,
standing around in
view by the van's headlights as we
arrived.
It was
a chilly 25 ° F. when we entered the blind, but early May is actually near the end of lek
activity. Most females are already off incubating their eggs, which will hatch in
time for the first burst of bug activity as the weather warms. However, a few
females drop by. One of the other birders counted 4 instances of mating, but it
seemed a rather small reward for all the hours that the males spent strutting their stuff.