The alarm rang way too early for my taste, but while love knows no bounds, it does know sunrise, at least for the sage grouse. Outdoor Guy and I were up before dawn to watch one of the most talked about residents of the Wyoming landscape in its annual mating ritual.
Each spring, Wyoming's sage grouse gather on breeding grounds, known as leks, to strut their stuff for a potential mate. In our many adventures, Outdoor Guy and I had seen numerous sage grouse in the badlands between Ten Sleep and Wyoming. I'd heard about their crazy mating ritual, and asked my husband if we could find a lek and watch sometime. Thanks to our Game and Fish connections, we had directions to a lek about 30 minutes from our house. So yesterday, at 5 a.m., we loaded up in the big white pickup and headed for the badlands.
As dawn broke, Outdoor Guy spotted a lone black spot up ahead on a hill. As the sky grew lighter, soon we could make out the tell-tale point tail feathers of a male sage grouse in full strut. He'd strut to the left, puff out his chest and cock his head, listening, I presume, for a response from an interested female. Getting none, he'd strut to the left and repeat the process. Unfortunately for him, no revved up sage grouse hotties could be found.
"Tom said the lek was pretty hot and heavy last week," my husband told me. "Maybe we missed it by a week."
That was disappointing. Seeing sage grouse up close was something I'd wanted to do since last spring. But if all I got to see was this one, lonely male doing his thing, it was better than nothing.
Several minutes later, we decided to drivedown the road a little in hopes that there were more birds over the next ridge. Ben put the pickup in drive and we performed what he lovingly calls the "three-quarter ton sneak" down the BLM road.
"That guy must be lost, because all the others are up ahead. Look up there in the lighter colored grass. All those black lumps are grouse," Ben said, pointing out the windshield.
Jackpot. Ahead of us was the lek, with about two dozen birds of both sexes in various stages of coitus. We watched for the birds for almost an hour.
My favorite moment was when one male took umbrage with another male who was vying for the affection of a particularly pretty hen (at least I'm assuming she's pretty...but I'm no male sage grouse, so what do I know). The males puffed their chests and made their weird noises and chest bumped one another around for several minutes. The bigger male must have been declared the victor, but when he turned to reap the reward of his spoils, the lovely female was nowhere to be found. In his fervor to banish the competition, he took his eyes off the prize, and she got bored and wandered off. The male looked all around, could not locate his true love and deflated like a guy getting shot down at a singles bar. I laughed out loud at his apparent despair.
Sage grouse are dependent on sagebrush-dominated habitats. Sagebrush is a crucial component of their diet year-round, and sage grouse select sagebrush almost exclusively for cover. As people expand their own habitat for residential and energy development into the habitat of the sage grouse, populations have declined from around 16 million birds 100 years ago to about 200,000 birds today. Predators like coyotes, ravens and other raptors also take their toll on sage grouse species. Environmental groups have tried to get the sage grouse placed on the Endangered Species list twice before. In 2010, the Department of the Interior said the sage grouse was "warranted but precluded," essentially putting it on a waiting list behind more critically threatened species in need of federal protection.
I'm no bird biologist and I don't pretend to have the answers for balancing the needs of people with the needs of wildlife. But I do know I got to witness something pretty special that morning on the Washakie badlands, a native species doing an ancient dance of love. Here's hoping we can all work together so the party can go on for generations to come.
