On April 3, 2021 I had the chance to revisit the Greater Sage-Grouse on their lek. This time I was not as lucky in my positioning. The weather was not quite as cooperative either. There were high clouds all morning to diffuse the light and it was way above average temperatures for first thing in the morning in early April. As a result I ended up with a lot of mirage (heat distortion) when viewing the grouse. The effect was compounded since I was farther away from the grouse so there was more atmosphere to look though. I also had attached my 1.4x teleconverter to the 600mm F4 lens and I am sure that magnified the distortions.
Similar to last time, I struggled with my microphone again. I had a plan for getting the microphone off my camera, but the way I was positioned I still couldn’t get it far enough away to not pick up the lens motor noise. Since I was farther away from the grouse I had to boost the microphone so that made it even more sensitive to picking up the noise.
Eventually a few grouse did move in a little closer, so I was able to remove the 1.4x teleconverter and get a few acceptable stills. It also helped tame down the heat distortion on the video.
After we were done viewing the grouse, we drove around to a few areas we have known to see burrowing owls, but we did not find any. It may still be too early, I am not sure. I am not as familiar with the burrowing owl patterns so I am not sure when they normally arrive. It is on my list for this year to hopefully find one to photograph. We did observe more song birds this trip, so the couple of weeks made a big difference. We saw a lot of Western Meadowlarks, Mountain Bluebirds, Horned Larks, Sandhill Cranes, several birds of prey, and several geese and duck species.
Of course I still had a great time, but overall it was not as successful a trip as my first outing. If you did not see my post about my first trip out this year, please scroll back on my blog posts to review it. I am hoping to maybe get out at least one more time this spring depending on weather and what I have going on. If I do I will make sure to keep you updated.
Male Greater Sage-Grouse. I liked how his feathers curled up around his head on this pose.
Side profile of a male Greater Sage-Grouse on the lek.