The weather channel advised for rain and possibly heavy snow. Likewise for NPR. Local channels had a "winter storm" advisory for my northern mountains.

This for the last day of April.

But I set the alarm, just the same. And the heeler sisters and I headed out north, just the same.

Into the drizzle.

Turned back after only a couple miles. Right where they found the skeleton of the murdered little girl years back.

Before we had gone a quarter-mile, the rain quit. You could see a glow in the east where the sun would come up. So I turned around again.

And we checked four strutting grounds. No birds on the first two, but strutting aplenty on the third and fourth. Overcast, yes, but visibility for miles.

As I sat watching the remaining birds on lek number four (half had flushed when three antelope, spooked by our arrival up the muddy slope, had busted over a rise and in on the grouse), they all suddenly stopped. And hunkered down.

Another g*d*m*f* eagle, I figured.

I was wrong, as the blast of cold air that struck them soon hit us, freezing my fingers to the scope. An arctic blast from the west, bringing with it the mists again. And stopping all strutting for the morning.

And if those trees look familiar to you, they are. The same trees along the same piece of the Continental Divide.

Only this time, we're on the east side, and the fog is fighting from the west.

And today, the fog won.

No snow, no rain. No winter storm. Just clouds and mist.

And thus ended the last morning of April.