I spent most of the day adding little numbers off another antelope count map. In addition to each group of antelope, I also mark our flight paths on the map as we go, making it easier to keep track of where we are, and hence to figure out where the pronghorn were.

Almost all these flight paths are due north or south, straight up and down the map. Except in a couple corners.

There, because of the boundaries we use, the count area narrows to a point that, if we tried to fly north and south, as soon as we leveled after one turn, it would be time to start banking for the next.

Kind of hard to see and count antelope when one window is facing blue sky and the other has sagebrush whizzing by underneath it.

And also rough on the observer's innards.

To be honest, in most cases we could extend our flight outside the count area, turn around, and then fly back in. It would add time and cost to the flight, but it could be done.

Before the use of GPS, count transects had to be kept short, to allow the pilot to fly towards a visible landmark to keep the route straight north or south.

Compasses work fine on the ground, where the front of the vehicle is pointed the direction you are headed, but in an airplane, in our windy country, quite often you are crabbing sideways against the wind. Which means the pilot has to eyeball what your true direction of travel is. And it ain't where the propeller is pointing.

So flying short transects by line of sight greatly increased the flying time (and the number of turns). Budgets being tight, and clear mornings being scarce, we learned to cover the corners without adding more flight miles.

And old habits are hard to break.

And the budgets are still tight.

So in those corners, we have always made some gentle east-west loops to cover that triangular piece of ground. We've done it every time we've flown it, but every year the pilot again asks:

"Do you want to take a sashay through the corner?"

Do you know anybody else who uses that word?

"Sashay."

As in sashay v. 2 c. to proceed or move in a diagonal or sideways manner.

Either that, or the pilot is asking me to square dance with him.