On the morning of March 13th, 2021 my sister Melissa and I got up super early in the morning to go check out one of the Greater Sage-Grouse leks we like to visit every year. Most of the leks I like to visit are on BLM land, but I am very hesitant to disclose their locations since they could easily be overwhelmed with people. I do often get asked about them, but as much as I like to help people, I value the safety of the birds more. So many of my “spots” have become “loved to death” in recent years by too many people, so the few I have left I try to protect.
This was the earliest I have ever gone out to look for grouse. Normally I wait until about the first week of April, but with the warm weather this spring, I had a hunch they would already be out and I was correct. Besides being warm, it has also been dry this spring, which is also a factor since the roads can become very muddy in that country and makes getting to the leks difficult.
This particular morning we got lucky and we were set up in a good spot. While the grouse are usually in the same general area, it is sometimes difficult to determine exactly where they might congregate. The lighting conditions were good and I was able to capture some of my best pictures of the Greater Sage-Grouse yet. I was able to get the new Canon R5 this winter, so it was my first big outing using it. I had ordered the camera back in August, but I did not actually receive my copy until the last week of October. I was primarily pairing the R5 with my Canon 600mm F4 version ii lens for this morning. So far that is working out to be a good combination.
I attempted to capture some video as well, but I had not taken the time to properly setup my external mic so my results were not great. I have also found that even with the external mic the 600mm lens’s focus motors can be picked up on the microphone. I am still working on some ideas for how to resolve this.
We saw probably about 40 grouse on the lek that morning. It was about ¾ males to ¼ females. We were so early in the spring that we did not observe any of the normal prairie songbirds we usually spot along with the grouse. The Western Meadowlarks in particular are almost always present and also present an audio challenge as their calls can easily overwhelm your audio track.
Portrait of a male Greater Sage-Grouse on a lek.
Profile shot of a male Greater Sage-Grouse on a lek.
A group of male Greater Sage-Grouse on their mating grounds known as a lek.