Had sunshine today. First morning in quite a while. Overcompensated for the sunlight by bringing home 14 Mbytes of pics (no, they're not all here... just a small sampling).

Started off with the strutting ground that had a finishing rig drilling beside it yesterday.

Rig gone.

As in, gone, gone. No rig, no trucks, no noise. And three cocks out strutting on the lek.

Actually won one. Felt good.

Second strutting ground had one cock sitting nearby, but no one strutting. And a full-size drilling rig being set up roughly 1.1 miles to the southeast.

The third strutting ground had five cocks strutting away, a few of which were faily cooperative:

If you're one of those inquisitive people who looks at file names, no, I did not think today was the first of May. I discovered this lek on May Day, hence the name.

A nice tail view:

For those of you who have never watched sage grouse courtship, the strut begins with the cock filling the airsacks in his breasts:

He than brushes his wings twice across the airsacks, for a loud "schwoop, schwoop":

and then the airsacks are slapped against each other for the loud "PLOP-plop":

The part I like best is a second or two later, when he exhales the air in a light "hoot":

After a half hour of watchin these guys, the heelers and I went back to the second lek. And found two grouse back out strutting, with the silent rig 1.1 miles in the background:

A stop at the company office confirmed whose drilling rig this was. And that it is on private ground, as in, they can drill there if they want to. And since moving these rigs is "expensive" (Each well is about $200,000 to drill. Of course, they get that money all back in just one to three months of production, and the next 15-20 years is almost all pure profit.), they're probably going to do just that.

So, won one. Lost one.

Oh, and it has come to the attention of management that some pack members have not yet gotten the message that there will be no more games of "chase the truck".