Revisiting the Greater Sage-Grouse, April 3, 2021

On April 3, 2021 I had the chance to revisit the Greater Sage-Grouse on their lek. This time I was not as lucky in my positioning. The weather was not quite as cooperative either. There were high clouds all morning to diffuse the light and it was way above average temperatures for first thing in the morning in early April. As a result I ended up with a lot of mirage (heat distortion) when viewing the grouse. The effect was compounded since I was farther away from the grouse so there was more atmosphere to look though. I also had attached my 1.4x teleconverter to the 600mm F4 lens and I am sure that magnified the distortions. 

Similar to last time, I struggled with my microphone again. I had a plan for getting the microphone off my camera, but the way I was positioned I still couldn’t get it far enough away to not pick up the lens motor noise. Since I was farther away from the grouse I had to boost the microphone so that made it even more sensitive to picking up the noise. 

Eventually a few grouse did move in a little closer, so I was able to remove the 1.4x teleconverter and get a few acceptable stills. It also helped tame down the heat distortion on the video. 

After we were done viewing the grouse, we drove around to a few areas we have known to see burrowing owls, but we did not find any. It may still be too early, I am not sure. I am not as familiar with the burrowing owl patterns so I am not sure when they normally arrive. It is on my list for this year to hopefully find one to photograph. We did observe more song birds this trip, so the couple of weeks made a big difference. We saw a lot of Western Meadowlarks, Mountain Bluebirds, Horned Larks, Sandhill Cranes, several birds of prey, and several geese and duck species.

Of course I still had a great time, but overall it was not as successful a trip as my first outing. If you did not see my post about my first trip out this year, please scroll back on my blog posts to review it. I am hoping to maybe get out at least one more time this spring depending on weather and what I have going on. If I do I will make sure to keep you updated.

Male Greater Sage-Grouse. I liked how his feathers curled up around his head on this pose.

Side profile of a male Greater Sage-Grouse on the lek.

Freezout Lake Wildlife Management Area, March 20, 2021

On the morning of March 20th I decided to head out to the Feezout Lake Wildlife Management Area near Fairfield, Montana. It is about an hour drive from my home in Great Falls to the WMA. I had been monitoring the numbers of snow geese, as well as the swans, online and decided I would take my chances and go a week or two earlier than I normally would. Typically the best time for viewing is about the last week of March. That actually turned out to be the case again this year, but prior to that, the numbers had been well below average. The swan numbers the weekend I went were well above average however. I have heard speculation that the warmer than average spring was the cause of the unusual patterns this year. You can monitor the migration by going to FWP’s Story map for the Freezout Lake WMA. Freezout Lake Wildlife Management Area (arcgis.com)

The morning I went there were reported to be about 4,000 swans and only about 15,000 snow geese. The swan numbers were more than double the average, but the snow geese numbers were only about half the average for that time of year. Typically the snow geese fly off the water right before sunrise, but the day I went I helplessly watched as the biggest flock I saw took off as I was pulling off the highway. I heard that they were leaving earlier in the mornings this spring than usual. Since I had missed the snow geese, I decided to concentrate on the swans. 

I found a pond that had a large number of swans on it and I walked down the levy to try and get in front of them. And by “get in front of them” I am referring to in front of them in the direction I predicted they would take off. Swans (like all birds) will take off into the wind, so you have a pretty good idea where they will go. The levy I was on did not run perfectly perpendicular to their take off direction, but it was close enough I could get some quartering head on shots which was much more desirable than getting a rear shot of a bird taking off which would have been the case from the road nearest the pond. 

I spent about equal time taking still photographs and video. I knew I wanted to get some slow motion shots of them taking off, as they kind of run on water to get up to speed for take off and I just find that really interesting. So I was shooting in 4k and 60 frames per second on my R5. With the white birds on a cloudy featureless sky, I was having some trouble maintaining focus with the low contrast scene, but I still managed to get some ok stills and video. The wind was rather high however, so I did not get much for audio.

A pair of Tundra Swans taking off.

Tundra Swans flying in formation.

A pair of Tundra Swans flying towrds the camera.

Greater Sage-Grouse, March 13, 2021

On the morning of March 13th, 2021 my sister Melissa and I got up super early in the morning to go check out one of the Greater Sage-Grouse leks we like to visit every year. Most of the leks I like to visit are on BLM land, but I am very hesitant to disclose their locations since they could easily be overwhelmed with people. I do often get asked about them, but as much as I like to help people, I value the safety of the birds more. So many of my “spots” have become “loved to death” in recent years by too many people, so the few I have left I try to protect.  

This was the earliest I have ever gone out to look for grouse. Normally I wait until about the first week of April, but with the warm weather this spring, I had a hunch they would already be out and I was correct. Besides being warm, it has also been dry this spring, which is also a factor since the roads can become very muddy in that country and makes getting to the leks difficult.

This particular morning we got lucky and we were set up in a good spot. While the grouse are usually in the same general area, it is sometimes difficult to determine exactly where they might congregate. The lighting conditions were good and I was able to capture some of my best pictures of the Greater Sage-Grouse yet. I was able to get the new Canon R5 this winter, so it was my first big outing using it. I had ordered the camera back in August, but I did not actually receive my copy until the last week of October. I was primarily pairing the R5 with my Canon 600mm F4 version ii lens for this morning. So far that is working out to be a good combination.

I attempted to capture some video as well, but I had not taken the time to properly setup my external mic so my results were not great. I have also found that even with the external mic the 600mm lens’s focus motors can be picked up on the microphone. I am still working on some ideas for how to resolve this. 

We saw probably about 40 grouse on the lek that morning. It was about ¾ males to ¼ females. We were so early in the spring that we did not observe any of the normal prairie songbirds we usually spot along with the grouse. The Western Meadowlarks in particular are almost always present and also present an audio challenge as their calls can easily overwhelm your audio track.


Portrait of a male Greater Sage-Grouse on a lek.

Profile shot of a male Greater Sage-Grouse on a lek.

A group of male Greater Sage-Grouse on their mating grounds known as a lek.