Or so they say, right?

Yeah. Right.

So once again I headed out to run the strutting ground route in the dunes. My hopes high because the sky was completely overcast.

Weather not conducive for flying eagles.

And all went well, until lek four.

Three grouse out there, hiding in the sage. Where there had been 45 the day before.

They'd been flushed.

Again.

Craaap.

Finished the route just the same. Or tried to. At the sixth and last lek, I found birds strutting away, the counting easier than normal because the clouds blocked the sun, which is normally directly into my eyes at this lek.

As I swept the field from right to left, barely started with 23 cocks counted, the sage exploded with grouse.

Flushed. Again. I scanned and scanned for an eagle, and saw none. And then, there in the lek itself...

A pronghorn buck.

One lone antelope, in a panic about me parked on the hilltop, decided his escape route should pass right through the mass of courting grouse.

Best guess was over 80 cocks in the air, with over thirty hens. But the count route was ruined before I even got here.

No point in crying over flushed grouse, at this point.

Seconds later, the storm hit. The forecasted cold front, arriving about 12 hours late.

Before I could get to the highway it was a full spring storm, disappointing a few critters who thought they'd seen the last of winter.