a Wyoming mini adventure...

Our Thursday was a bit busy. We woke up early to do our practice point
count session with the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory crews. And we had
a tiny bit of snow to deal with. Thankfully, we had 4-WD trucks, so we
collected ourselves - having gotten most of our gear, data sheets, and
GPS set the night before - and headed to Wind Cave National Monument.
After finishing the training, the boss and I packed our things up, and
departed for Wyoming (we were in South Dakota, near Custer) and our first
official point count of the season.

After navigating ourselves to our first point - it was about a 3 hour
drive, with the last hour on a maze of dirt roads through the national
grassland - we did some minor exploring, just touching up on our bird
songs. The days were still short (this is in mid-May), so we got our
tents set up. I set in to read for a little bit, then began making
dinner.

While the boss and I made and ate our dinners, the sun was starting to
set. The mountains were far away yet, so we had rolling grassland and
sagebrush hills as far as the eye can see. This part of Wyoming was
mostly open rangeland, so we did see some fences here and there. But our
transect, and our camp location near the road, were on actual national
grassland land (part of the Forest Service). The wind had more or less
ceased by the time the sun was setting.

Crisp, cool air. Calm. Wide open. We enjoyed the quietude and solitude.
And then we began to hear a faint "pip" "pip" "pip" noise, distant. Kind
of like bubble wrap, being popped one bubble at time. We both looked at
each other, walked a bit to the west to the next rise. Still couldn't see
anything - but we could tell it was fairly distant (maybe up to a
kilometer away). And we were fairly sure of what we were hearing. So, if
we were right, we were bound to see and hear it again in the morning, on
the way to the transect.

It is dark out when we awaken the next day. Sunrise is close to six AM,
and we have a long enough walk to the transect we want to make sure we
give ourselves plenty of time. Wind is always a concern: we cannot do our
surveys if the wind is in excess of 20 mph (35 kph), and that is a common
occurrence on the grassland. We had checked the forecast before we left
South Dakota, but still - better safe than sorry. But both of us were
also anxious to see if the noise we heard the night before was what we
thought it was.

We prepare our breakfasts by headlamp, and get ourselves warmed up. It is
near freezing, and layers is the way to go, since it is bound to be up to
30 degrees F warmer by the time the transect is done. During breakfast,
we are keeping our ears peeled, and yes, we do hear the same noise from
the night before, in the same direction. The sounds are a bit more
emphatic, and more frequent. We are now 99% sure of what we found, but it
will be nice to see it to confirm. Plus, it is not something we would
have expected to find, at this time of year.

Breakfast finished - it is still dark, though sunlight is starting to
crest the horizon. We get ourselves together, making sure we have all the
equipment, data sheets, food, and water we need for the morning. Then we
begin walking west. It is not difficult hiking, mostly just sagebrush and
shortgrass prairie grasses through gentle hills. But we watch out for
sneaky cacti, and thorny shrubs that might snag our clothing. And walk
towards the "pip" noises.

After every new rise, we do a brief binocular scan on the next few hills
and valleys, to look for what we are hearing. After the second or third
rise, I say I've found it.

A couple of hill rises away, near a cattle water tank, are ten Greater
Sage Grouse, on their lek. Nothing on our transect description sheets,
written by the crew the previous year, have anything written down about
hearing or seeing one. We were pleasantly surprised to see it - normally
the leks have finished by early May, but due to a heavy snow year,
apparently the birds needed to continue to display, since the females
still needed to select some mates. While watching the males display, we
do see some females nearby, about five. And the males make all sorts of
ruckus. Small jumps. Wing whooshes. Brief charges. Lots of air sac
"popping" (the pip noises). We can tell the two dominant males - they
never stop displaying, they are towards the middle, and seem to charge
the others a bit. The periphery males sometimes seem to not know what to
do.

We admire them for a while from our location, then continue on to our
transect. The work still needs to be done. And the rest of the avian
community is waking up - Brewer's Sparrows, Lark Bunting, Horned Larks,
and Western Meadowlarks, among others.

Our path to the transect - we are being careful to stay on public land -
brings us quite close to the lek. Surprisingly, we are able to pass
within a couple hundred meters of the birds without them seeming to be
bothered. Either they are very devoted to their task at hand, or, for
once, are not leery of human encroachment. We still hear them when we get
to our starting location, so when we begin, we note the lek on our data
sheets, the number, and the location.

Within the first hour of the transect survey, the grouse have finished -
I could not hear them after my second point, but the boss could, since
her points were closer to the lek. We had an overabundance of birds to
count, but finished our transects with plenty of time to spare.

And thus ends the story of my favorite birding moment - so far, anyway.
This was in May 2010.