It was not what I expected.

The heeler sisters and I were at our third strutting ground of the morning. I'd just climbed back into the truck, after standing on top of the cab to get a final count of the grouse on the lek.

Twenty-six cocks and one hen, if you're wondering. Highest count since 1985.

Aaaanyway, I'd just slid onto the seat, shoving the masked heeler aside and cursing myself for wearing thermals today because it was already above freezing, and the phone rang.

The Outfit's phone. And this being not a standard working day for most folks, it isn't likely to be work.

It's gotta be the wife.

Which will not be anything good, this early on a Saturday morning.

I was wrong. Wasn't the wife. One of my wardens, who just naturally knew I'd be out checking grouse today.

As was he.

First words I heard on the phone?

"Are we at the peak, yet?"

He meant the "peak" of hens. While the numbers of male cocks attending a lek slowly increases as the strutting season progresses, as the yearling males figure out what is going on, the number of hens is a trickle at first, then a sudden rush, or peak, when hens will outnumber the cocks. And then suddenly, they're almost all gone.

Male numbers will reach their highest number a couple weeks after the hens peak, and then slowly drop off as males get discouraged and fatigued (they lose a tremendous amount of weight during the strut).

So, our standard counts designed to monitor changes in lek attendance from year to year do not initiate until after the peak of hens. Which shifts slightly from year to year, I suspect largely because of the different phases of the moon.

So, game wardens eager to start their standard counts (Not so much because they love the early morning work, but because they have other things to do. In this case a trip to the Virgin Islands.) will pester you to let them start counting earlier and earlier every year.

No, I doubt we're at the peak. But close to it. I'm finding flocks of hens hanging around leks in the morning, but not yet the mobs of amorous females crowding around the Alpha cocks like you see at the peak.

As our conversation about when to start counts, and his impending trip, and the additional 3,000 gas wells I learned about this week progresses, I am startled to find myself in front of a strutting ground.

Not the strutting ground where our conversation started, but another, four miles away. I've basically been on autopilot. I remember happily discovering the gas company had replaced the gate with a cattleguard, and working my way through a herd of black cows. But that's about all I remember of the drive.

It's as if the heelers had been driving whilst I talked.

As it is, I got birds to count.

"Can you count while you talk?" the warden asks.

Nope.

"Well, I'm done and headed back to town," he replies, and hangs up.

Fifty-nine cocks and eight hens I count.

A record high since the pilot and I first found this lek in 1987.

The day had started dark and early, the dawn chasing after a crescent moon and planet.

We were well over the Continental Divide by the time the sun rose.

I was surprised when the truck in front of us on the highway pulled off on our exit, the dirt road into the gas fields. And frustrated when the driver insisted on driving 25-30 mph.

We got places to be, man. But it was nearly four miles before the Idaho vehicle pulled over to let us pass.

From that high ground, we got a good view of the plume from yet another gas well flare.

Whether to conceal thier pollution, or just take advantage of the calm winds, I do not know, but every morning in the gas fields you will find one or two of these black plumes sweeping across the desert from where a company has ignited the oily slick on top of one of their drilling waste ponds.

By our fourth lek, this plume was dozens of miles north, caressing the high hills and mountains with its throat-burning poisons.

I know. I've been caught in those things when they come to ground. Your eyes water, your throat burns, and you wonder what in the hell is wrong with you. But climb up, or drop down in elevation, and it all goes away.

Sorta.

Pity the critters that can't get out of it.

Another shot from the morning, of traffic crossing over the Divide before sunrise.