This morning's lek surveys went well. The first strutting ground was one which a volunteer found last year, and that I had never seen. The thrill of a new discovery. Locating exactly where the birds strut, and the best vantage point for a reliable count without disturbing the birds. They strut in a little hollow on top of a rocky ridge. The only good vantage point was from the northeast, with me standing on the toolbox in the truck. (I have others where you have to stand on top of the cab to see all the grouse.)

There were no grouse on the third and fourth leks of the morning, but there was an eagle on the ridge in between the two. These two leks are both within a half-mile of the Continental Divide, and there was a fog bank trying to roll into the basin from the north all morning long. Leks were in and out of the sunshine, as were we.

Decided to hike onto the third lek to see if the grouse had been there that morning. Once the cool air hit, I naturally had to pause to relieve myself of some of the morning's coffee. The masked heeler was trotting ahead with her sister, and proceeded to make a deposit of her own. Directly on the shadow of my head.

Now that shadow of my head could only have occupied one square foot of ground. She and her sister normally roam 3-40 meters ahead of me, in an arc at least 60 degrees wide. I haven't done the math, but I know she had a lot of country to choose from for her duty. I find it hard to believe that it was a coincidence that she decided to take a crap on my head, figuratively.

On the way back to the truck, I found several sagebrush plants that had been nearly buried with fresh dirt. Buried by moles and gophers. It is normal for moles and gophers to take advantage of good snow cover during the winter. They push out tunnels in the snow, and then fill them with the dirt extracted from their tunnels and trenches in the ground. The snow gives them a rare opportunity to be active above ground. When the snow melts, you have this network of gopher castings running all over the ground.

But the snow was extra deep this year, and covered the ground for about an extra 2-3 months. And sagebrush normally absorbs sunlight and melts a cavern in the snow around it (one reason sage can keep leaves on all year round). Apparently the enterprising little gophers in this little draw used those natural caverns to store their surplus dirt. Several piles were over a foot and a half deep and more than two feet around. Busy little gophers!

The road out from the last lek takes you past what I call the Sandhole. We're in what are essentially stabilized sanddunes. Sometime well before I got into this country, some oil company had a disaster at a well they were drilling in the dunes. End result was a hardened platform of scorched sand mixed with oil, like a small parking lot, surrounded by bare dunes where the fire killed the vegetation. After a few years of wind, we had a nice tar platform facing out onto an open sand pit with steep sandy walls. Was a great place for target practice. Took the wife out there for several hours of fun with the .22 one Saturday before we were married. We had a great time shooting large firecrackers stuck in the sandy wall (the kind you can't get anymore, about 1/8th a stick of dynamite). You always knew when you hit the bullseye. It was the finale to a really great day.

I stopped by and walked the pit after my lek survey last spring. Erosion had worn the sand walls down, and moved them a good 4-6 feet back in the past 20+ years. But I was able to figure out where we set up, and roughly where we had set the fireworks. After a little scrounging, I found two neatly mushroomed .22 bullets. A little crusted with alkali after all these years. They're in with my stash of mementos on my dresser now. To anyone else, they would just be little lumps of lead.

When I was gassing up in town I was treated to a small airshow, a straffing dogfight of a circa WWI biplane by a circa WWII fighter plane. Not an organized show, just two pilots headed cross country having a little fun before they landed for fuel. Still kinda neat.

Wife and I spent most of the rest of the day at an estate/antiques auction. As usual, almost everything good was outside our price range. Did buy a narrow mirror for the wife's office (spent too much... but she left to take son #2 to a band event, and stated that if the mirror came up while she was gone, to buy it. She didn't mention any price limitations. So I bought it. Came with a horrid little framed print.) We also bought a framed sage grouse photo for me (that came with two other garbage prints to be added to our pile of merchandise to be resold at some future auction), and a neat king cobra statue for son #2. Any of the coins that son #1 would have liked went way too high. Too many professional dealers there.

The wife also bought a gorgeous necklace/bracelet combo, almost a modernistic celtic style, but probably from the 1930s. At least all the board and bingo games that came in the box with her purchase were from the 1930s. More stuff to return to the auction in the future. Also bought an old military footlocker (ca WWII?) to hold all the stuff that we are keeping until we can resell it at a future auction.

Topped the day off with a dinner with just the two of us at our famous, small local mexican restaurant.

Pretty nice Saturday. Now I need to get to bed for tomorrow's lek counts.