April 4, 2021 I was able to visit a blind to observe the Sharp-Tailed Grouse on their lek. I had just been out the day before observing the Greater Sage-Grouse, so it was a pretty busy weekend for me. If you are interested in that trip please check out my blog post titled for April 3rd. I probably traveled more than 400 miles in about a 36 hour period to travel east for the sage-grouse and back home and north for the sharp-tailed. Although I was pretty tired, I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to get out and do such amazing things.
The Sharp-Tailed Grouse gather on a lek similar to the Greater Sage-Grouse, but their mating rituals are quite a bit different. The Sharp-Tailed are quite a bit smaller than the Sage-Grouse as well. The Sharp-Tailed grouse does more of a dance and makes much different vocalizations that consist of some cooing sounds along with some clucks and other calls to attract the females. Instead of the large yellow air sacks like the Sage-Grouse, the Sharp-Tailed grouse have some smaller purple air sacks more on the side of their necks. The grouse also make a strange noise while they are dancing which is difficult to describe. I believe it is caused by the stomping of their feet and the shaking of their tail feathers. If you watch the video below hopefully you can hear what I am describing.
During my visit I saw about 30 males on the lek, but no females. It might be a bit early in the season for the females to show up yet. The grouse were most active before sunrise, so it was difficult to capture the peak of the action as it was still too dark. I arrived at the blind about 5:55 AM and I could hear the grouse show up about 6:10 AM, so I was set up just in time. It was probably a good 15 minutes where I could only wait and listen to them before I could really start to see them. Sitting in the dark just listening to them is a pretty cool experience though. The grouse stayed on the lek initially until about 8:35 AM. They flew off for unknown reasons, sometimes you will see a hawk or a coyote or something in the area, but I didn’t observe anything. I started to pack up my gear and got ready to leave when about half of the grouse came back. So that was pretty neat. They probably stayed about another 20 minutes or so and then took off shortly after 9 AM. While I was in the blind I also observed a ground squirrel, a horned lark, western meadowlarks and I observed some geese and ducks fly by as well.
The grouse got VERY close to me at times, so close in fact they were inside the minimum focusing distance of my 600mm lens. I can’t remember the exact minimum focus distance, but I think it’s about 4 or 5 feet, so that tells you how close they were. I also had more time and plenty of space so I was able to get my microphone off camera this time, so the audio on my videos is much improved over my previous videos this year. I got an extension cord for the mic and I borrowed a clip off my GoPro so I was able to clip it on an opening of the blind and that worked out well. I had my Canon R5 on my Canon 600mm F4 on my gimbal tripod for most of the morning, but I also had my older Canon 5D mk IV with a 70-200mm F2.8 on a smaller tripod to cover some wider shots. I did swap the 70-200mm onto my R5 for a short while to grab a few still photos and some video at a wider angle as well. I filmed the whole thing in 4k at 60 frames per second. That would give me the option to slow things down a bit for some slow motion, but I did not do that on any of the videos I have edited so far, but I may still go back and do that at some point.
Male Sharp-Tailed Grouse doing a dance on the lek.
Close up of a male Sharp-Tailed Grouse, this grouse was very close, if it was any closer I probably could not have focused on it.
Profile shot of a male Sharp-Tailed Grouse on the lek.