The number of sage grouse appear to be increasing. Here’s what I saw while observing birds near Dubois this week
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As I pulled onto a traditional breeding ground for the greater sage grouse at 5:05 Tuesday morning, I waited as a lone male slowly walked across the road. I rolled down my window and could hear three or four males already “booming” on the main lek. A couple hundred yards farther, I parked my truck near the center of a satellite lek to await the arrival of the largest grouse of North America.
I slipped on my heavy coat, rolled down my window and waited for the grouse to start flying or walking in. I had taken four friends to the lek the day before to observe the grouse and to identify the center of the satellite lek. Three of the four had never seen the reproductive show put on by these beautiful birds and were thrilled at the chance to see them. When we arrived, there were over 200 birds in the area.
On Monday, we were an hour later than I usually go out alone. I like to get positioned before the birds start arriving. If I get there before the birds do, my vehicle is just part of the terrain and they will sometimes walk under my truck. This way, I get a personal up-close view of them putting on their show.
By 5:38 on Tuesday, the males started flying in, the moon allowed me to see them faintly as they started to gather around me. It took only a few seconds after landing before they started puffing out their two large air-sacks on their chest and to challenge their opponents for supremacy of the lek. After about 10 minutes, I heard wings beating. The two cocks were fighting for the center of the lek, the choice breeding area.
After an hour, I heard the females flying into the lek from the surrounding areas. As the hens fly, they usually cackle while landing and it was getting light enough for me to distinguish between the genders as they walked past my truck.
In observing this lek area for the last three weeks, it seemed like the numbers of grouse were increasing. In 2022, I counted 72 birds, which was down from about 123 in 2015. As the hens were walking past the satellite lek to get to the main lek, I decided to count them. In just over an hour, I counted 127 hens that walked past and at 7:48, I counted 54 cocks displaying around the satellite lek.
A few minutes later, a pair of northern harriers flushed a large flock of birds from the main lek, but they did not harass the birds near me. After most of the hens had left the area, the cocks quit displaying and did more fighting. That ended when four hens wandered back about 8:15, causing the cocks to begin putting on a show again. A Golden eagle flushed all the birds at 8:45, which disappeared into the grasslands and sagebrush hills. The eagle was probably the one that has been observed harvesting two birds a week ago.
In the battle for lek supremacy, the cock who loses the fight will often be stunned and move away. Sometimes he is challenged by another cock for second place. The two main cocks of a lek will do up to 80% of the breeding, so the battles are important for the genetic makeup of the lek. Within two miles of the lek are two other leks where hens will sometimes visit to introduce other genes into the genetic makeup of the offspring.
It is still too early and too cold for the hens to start setting, but I did witness one hen that was bred on Tuesday. They will become serious about reproduction after the temperatures get a little warmer around mid-April.
The Red Road is still closed where most of the area leks can be found, so I won’t know until then if the increased population around Dubois is inflated from leks near the Red Road. The area north of the Egin/Hamer Road will not open until May 1, so it will be another month until we know how many grouse will be between the Red Road and the Sand Creek Road.
If you are hankering to see these greater sage grouse, head to Dubois and take the road toward Kilgore. There are plenty to see, unless a Golden eagle has flushed all of them before you get there. Drive carefully as they will sometimes be booming on the road.
