I awoke a few minutes after five. And all was dark, inside the truck and out, except for the mirror.

Reflecting the brightening dawn behind me.

I put my frozen glasses on, and slide the camera and binoculars into the sleeping bag to warm them up. Both windows are cracked a centimeter or so, and there's frost on the windshield.

On the inside.

Ten minutes later I finally decide to brave the cold, roll the driver's window down, and start to count strutting sage grouse.

One hundred and three cocks on the strutting ground.

Let me repeat that.

One hundred. And three. And the number of males attending leks won't actually peak for another two to three weeks.

It looks like last year was a good year.

Ten years ago, if I'd parked and slept where I did last night (arriving a few minutes before midnight), I would have awoken with grouse strutting all around me. But as numbers of birds on this lek grew, they have been shifting farther south. Now a majority are strutting on the south hillside in section 13, where ten years ago, none of them were.

And the hens... literally too many to keep track of. My best guess was sixty, but the way they evaporate into the sage, then briefly appear again, sneaking between short shrubs that are the exact same colour as the bird, it is impossible to say.

But a lot. I suspect their numbers probably peaked when the moon was full, around Easter weekend. As the half moon we have now continues to wane, so will the numbers of hens.

The boots were cold as I struggled to get them on without sliding completely out of the warm sleeping bag. My right hip hurts, from an entire night of never being able to stretch out. A few more counts of the birds on this lek, and then it was off, to the next lek of the morning. And then a third, a fourth, and finally a fifth. Most of a morning spent out in the open, with herds of pronghorn and feral horses. And, of course, sage grouse.

Sometimes all three in the same place

in our version of Serengeti.