So, I didn't wear anything green. But mine should be orange, anyway.

And the wife and I spent several hours this evening doing what we normally do on St Patty's Day.

Watching QVC.

Yeah, we might see something exciting in their annual Irish merchandise special, but once again, we're mainly there to listen to the bona fide Irish brogues.

Especially from the Irish women.

Enough to make your heart go pitter-patter. Particularly the younger, Dark Irish gal.

And yeah, I ordered an item or two for the wife earlier in the day, but don't tell her.

While the grouse have probably been strutting for two or three weeks already, I didn't start this year's lek surveys until this morning.

The sunrise as the heeler sisters and I headed out.

Those of you more astute observers out there will notice that the sun is well up in the sky, and we're still heading out.

Yep. Overslept. Badly.

Actually, got up in plenty of time, and got water started on the stove for coffee. And went back to bed.

Mistake.

But that bed felt so good. Little heeler didn't want to leave the bed either, but she did.

The first strutting ground was empty. Except for the golden eagle sitting smack dab in the middle of where the grouse should be. And probably were.

But it's too early in the season to get mad at eagles. We'll save that for later, when they mess up my standard counts.

Knocked off half the mud still attached to the rig on little snow drifts across the road to the second lek. Turns out those little drifts were rock hard.

Yeah, kinda cold out there.

Actually, it was right at freezing. Which meant there were some real interesting patterns in the pools of melt, where water couldn't decide if it was going to be solid, or liquid.

But there were grouse at the second lek, I just couldn't get close enough for a decent count. Figuring we were then done for the morning, I took the sisters south across the desert to scout out a couple more leks for another morning, and to see how things were in the gas patch.

Busy, as usual.

But before we could get there, I spied something new. Something dark standing up in the desert where there shouldn't be anything standing. Figured at first that it was a horse.

It wasn't.

Not exactly sure when someone decided to drop that tree off in the middle of nowhere, but I suspect it wasn't too long after Christmas.

Tells you how long it's been since I crossed the desert.

At the last moment, deep in the gas patch, I decided to veer off the main road and check the route to an easy lek, next to a gas well road.

And found grouse.

Strutting grouse.

Two hours after sunrise. Sat and watched the three cocks strut and prance for twenty minutes.

They've been practicing. First time I can recall seeing "synchronized strutting", like the dances their prairie chicken cousins do.

So, spring is finally here.

If the strutting grouse aren't enough proof, there's the fact that the antelope are running now, just because they can.

And they weren't the only ones running out in the country today.

While the spring thaw is in full force in the desert, you can see winter still reigns in the Wind Rivers.