Just a quick update on my field activities for the past two days.

First, for those of you anxiously waiting to know, Corky's truck is still there.

Ran the lek count route in the dunes yesterday, finding grouse on five of the six leks in expected numbers, with no eagle problems. Did have a coyote start yipping and howling at us when I was counting the sixth lek. Heelers jumped up and got cursed for knocking my arm around while I was trying to count through the spotting scope. Coyote only serenaded us for a little while, and then got smart and silent.

Managed to squeeze in a check on a seventh lek that morning, one where we had to drive across a muddy marsh (which I call Weasel Crossing, which is another whole story), count the birds, and then hurry back before the marsh thawed.

Made it.

Today's activity was the lek route in the desert. Again uneventful, except for the friggin' eagle sitting next to the near-empty fifth lek. Damn eagle. After it flew off, I saw that there were six diehard cocks who had stuck it out on the strutting ground, hunkering down trying to look like bushes or rocks with the eagle on a rise just 100 meters away. I stuck around, and within 25 minutes another 20 cocks had come back to join those six. So it wasn't a total loss.

On the drive home I was at milepost 15 again when I heard the 911 dispatcher call the patrol to report an accident between us and town. Deja vu. This time it was positive PI, with 10-52 already en route. A passenger vehicle had slammed into the rear of a semi pulling a gravel trailer. By the time I got there, traffic was just being bypassed around the accident and there were red lights all over. Seemed strange to be casually chatting with one of the deputies directing traffic while 60 yards away the firemen were still using their extraction equipment to get the driver out. But there was nothing else he or I could do, except get in the way.

After finishing the last lek yesterday, I stopped along the road and checked some old coyote carcasses that had been dumped a few years back. They were pretty much just bones and hair now. Picked up four fairly clean and nearly intact skulls. When I had looked at these carcasses last year, I had suspected they were poison kills since they had no signs of external injuries (i.e. bullet holes). But now that the flesh was eaten away, I could see the wires of snares mixed in with the bones. Asphyxiation. I wished our morning serenader luck.

Once we got off the sheep ranch and didn't have to worry about poison baits anymore, I gave the heeler sisters a long break. When they went drag racing down the road I tried to hide in the brush on the right side of the road, but the masked one turned back too soon and caught me with no seeking at all. Did find a snowbank for them to dig and bite in, and I got to wash some of the stale coyote smell off my hands. Then I tried hide-and-seek again, on the other side of the road. But the wind was behind me, and they sniffed me out right away.

Third time's the charm. After sending them running down the road, I jumped into the back of the truck and hid in the bed. That threw them. The pitch of their yips rose as they realized they couldn't find me. But their noses told them I was there at the truck somewhere. Finally the masked heeler jumped into the cab and spotted me out the back window.

Game over.

We win.

The wife and I used to play this game indoors, with our first Queensland red heeler. When we were newly married, and had the greatest fun in life just spending time playing with each other. Not "playing" as in the sexual connotation. Just playing.

Anyway, she would sit with the heeler, making her "stay" until I was hidden. Then she would order "go find him!" It was always a quick game. The house wasn't that big, and her (the heeler's) nose was great.

I hid in a big refrigerator box once. Whenever she got "cold" in the wrong part of the house, I would whistle to get her turned back the right way. Drove her frantic. When she figured out where I was, the heeler immediately attacked the box, and began ripping it apart to get to me. Sitting in that dark box when suddenly these fangs came ripping through the corner next to my shoulder and a piece of box disappeared. Shades of Wolfen! She eventually shredded the entire box. A refrigerator box.

Only won the hide-and-seek game with her once. Ran into the office and stripped naked, leaving my clothes in a pile. Then I ran and hid under the pile of dirty laundry in the bedroom, burying myself in clothes that already smelled like us. She searched every inch of the office, and circled through the house several times before giving up and looking expectantly at the wife.

At the new wife. Not that I had an old one. Just that the marriage was new. The whole idea of being married was new. I clearly remember the first time I called her "wife."

Now I'm really getting nostalgic. And rambling.

Back to work. (Like the fatigue and rambling won't be a problem there).