Hanky-Panky in the High Desert

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Part of the fun of being a birder is thinking back on previous adventures and remembering the details of a first sighting. I recently had cause to recollect the first time I saw the Greater Sage Grouse. In early April of 1990 I did an Eastern Sierra trip with John Morrison. We crossed the Sierra near Tahoe and headed south and met Eric and Sue Vollbrecht in Lee Vining and explored our way south. A highlight of this adventure was an early morning visit to the Crowley Lake Sage Grouse Lek. In those days you could drive to a parking area north of Crowley and watch the performance from the comfort of your car. Sadly, this is no longer possible as the Greater Sage Grouse are in decline and there are significant conservation efforts now in place to give them greater protection and hopefully begin to restore their numbers. These birds are sensitive to human pressure and have suffered mostly due to habitat loss. There is no question that they are one of the west's most striking birds to behold and the time to see them is when the males are displaying for the females in early spring at a congregation point known as a Lek.

It has long been a goal of Jeff Manker to see these birds and to witness their courtship display so this year we resolved to make the effort. While most of the Lek locations in California are a well kept secret in order to protect the birds and to give them the space they need to successfully reproduce, we knew of one on the extreme northwest edge of their range that, with some effort could be visited. Our friend Michael Morris, a frequent companion on many of my birding adventures over the years, was also interested in revisiting this species and drove over from Eureka to Susanville to meet us. Michael too had enjoyed the spectacle of the Crowley Lake Lek many years ago and had not seen them since. After meeting up we decided to make a quick drive out to locate the dirt road we would use to access the area as we would have to find it the next morning in the dark. A good thing we did. Just off the highway the road goes down into a large mud hole that we found to be impassable even with 4 wheel drive and mud tires. Now we knew that if we were going to see the Sage Grouse, we were going to have to hike in all the way from the highway . We headed back to town for some dinner and to make our plan.

The impassable mud hole

The alarm jarred us awake at 4 am. We spent some time organizing gear, getting food & coffee and bundling up for the pre-dawn hike (26 ºF). We hit the road at 5:15 and began our walk at 5:45. From previous year's e-bird sightings we had a general idea of where to look for the Lek. Jeff had also contacted one of his Master Birding class instructors who has led GGAS field trips in the area for some more precise location details. One thing we knew for certain was that the Lek had not yet been located this year. We basically had a 3 square mile area in which the birds might be congregating to search. Our strategy was to walk in uphill to the approximate location of last season's Lek, then to spread out and move slowly back down the slope listening for the tell-tale sound of the mating males on the dance floor. As we reached the top of our walk in along the badly rutted jeep road, it began to get light enough for us to see our surroundings clearly. With all of the recent winter weather there was a seasonal creek flowing several hundred yards to the north of us. Beyond the creek a few hundred more yards, a small ridge rose up. Jeff stayed on the south side of the creek while Michael and I crossed it and moved up to the top of the ridge to give us a better vantage point. Michael was a few hundred feet downslope from me and I had intended on swinging around him to the north before beginning our sweep downslope. It was at this moment that Michael first heard the birds but could not yet see them. He gave me a directional sign and since I was higher up on the slope I could look out and see what he could not. And there they were! About 200 yards away down the slope and gathered in a group. We counted at least 12 males and 6 females. We quickly called Jeff over and set up our scopes behind some scrub not wanting to get any closer and thus disturbing them.

The male courtship ritual involves fanning out the tail feathers, strutting around, and inflating the air sacs in their breast in an effort to convince the females that they are worth the time of day, similar I suppose to some human rituals. The Sage Grouse congregate like this only at the crack of dawn each day in the breeding season, when the show is over they disburse into the surrounding countryside until sunrise the next day. We came upon this lek at around 7 am and as the sun peeked over the horizon a bit later the birds were bathed in the light of a new day. We stayed for about a half hour taking photos and enjoying the show before leaving them to their amorous pursuits and began the walk back downslope. As we came closer to the historic location of the Lek we saw 6 more Sage Grouse doing their thing, they eventually all flew off in the direction of the new Lek further up the hill.

Michael on the left, Jeff on the right. If you click on the image and then zoom in you will see the birds as little white dots in the area around Jeff's head.

We were quite happy with the morning's endeavors and were enjoying the slow walk in the warming air when we caught one more lucky break. Some background first. A few years back the then Sage Sparrow was split into two separate species, Bell's Sparrow and Sagebrush Sparrow. Basically a California/coastal version (Bell's) and a Great Basin inland version (Sagebrush). My life-list sighting of the Sage Sparrow was back in 1983 in Carlsbad, CA and therefore a Bell's. Since the split I had not seen the Sagebrush Sparrow even though I probably saw dozens before the split. So, here we were on the edge of the Sagebrush Sparrow's range and I was hoping that maybe we'd get lucky; we did. Just before getting back to the truck we heard something that wasn't a Meadowlark or a Horned Lark and to my sheer delight turned out to be a Sagebrush Sparrow. I managed one lousy photo but Jeff got a few good ones and so I added a new life bird on the trip!

Sagebrush Sparrow

We finished our morning by heading over the the Fleming Unit at Honey Lake where we added a few waterfowl species, Tri-colored Blackbirds, and several hundred Sandhill Cranes to name the most notable.

Sandhill Cranes

Well you can't ask for better than that, scoring on the Sage Grouse, a new lifer - Sagebrush Sparrow, and hanging out with Jeff and Michael. This adventure was actually a bit of a warm-up event for our upcoming Great Basin Birding adventure in mid-May. The three of us will pile into one vehicle and for 10 days make a great circle around the Great Basin. We have high hopes for seeing some very elusive species and while there are no guarantees that we will see what we are hoping to see, we are guaranteed of having a blast trying. Stay tuned for that one, it should be a doozy.