Contrary to the weather folks' predictions, the morning was snowless. (But it's falling now.)

Trying to wrap up the lek checks in the gas fields, having saved a couple of abandoned ones until the last.

They're still abandoned.

But as I sat on a hilltop about a mile from one of the lost leks, scanning downsun for specks of white that might indicate a new lek, I had this odd sense that I should look back behind me, directly into the sun.

And there, on one of the red gas field roads I was parked on were...

Strutting sage grouse. Over twenty.

So, maybe I've found a new lek. Sat and waited for the birds to leave, and then the heeler sisters and I walked the area. A few old fecal pellets and caecal piles, but not many. And not many tracks in the dirt. So maybe this is a new lek site, and maybe it isn't. When grouse get flushed off their lek, like by an eagle (like the one sitting a mile and a half or so south of here), they quite commonly land en masse and resume strutting on the landing spot. Looks like a lek, sounds like a lek, but since they probably won't be back tomorrow, or any day thereafter, it's not a lek.

Had one of those earlier this spring. Only a handful of grouse on the lek, and nearly twice as many strutting out in the sage a couple hundred meters north. I wisely did not call that a new lek, as this morning everybody was back on the old site, and nobody was on the new.

Aaaanyway, there is clearly a lek out in this neck of the woods somewhere, and somewhere close, but not necessarily where I saw the birds this morning.

Which means I have to check there again. More work for yet another morning, when they are getting to be so few. Maybe tomorrow, and maybe not. Wife says we're supposed to get 5-10 cm of snow (actually, she said 2-4") tonight. If there's no wind, we'll still be able to go out. But if the wind is whipping, I don't think I want that 57 miles of interstate driving.

Speaking of the interstate...

This morning, as we headed home, the patchy pavement seemed to be unusually squirrelly. Truck wobbling back and forth with every groove.

I shoulda known what the problem was, but truth be told, it's been so long since I've had a flat...

Always fun on the shoulder of a busy highway. Yeah, I pulled off the asphalt, but then found I'd put the dead tire in an ant nest. And had to move. Only to have the jack sink slowly into the soft, damp dirt. Finally had to drive back up on the asphalt, meters from the whizzing semis, to get the job done.

Did give me a chance to walk up and visit the wife at her office while the flat, ruined tire was replaced, so it wasn't all bad. And the manager pointed out where I had tons of mud dried in on the rear wheels, which might explain the horrible shaking at 70+ mph the past month or so.

A quick stop at an autowash, and maybe tomorrow we'll find out if the shaking is gone.

And since it's been several days, one of the shots that's been waiting to be downloaded off the camera...