Lekking It Up

Bartlett Peak, out scouting

The crew (left to right): Coco, Dusty, Renee, Dan, Casper, and Bodie

Easter road fuel

Easter road fuel 2

Driving I-80

Renee and I did our first lek survey for NDOW this weekend. We recently went and did the training in the Smith Valley and then this past week we met up with the NDOW's volunteer coordinator and he assigned us a lek near the ranch—House Springs in the Black Rock Range (aka—according to my brother—Belmarel [but with no spelling attached, this is just phonetic bel-ma-rel]).

We left Reno on Friday at about 3:00 and decided to drop off our crew at Mike's and invited my sister-in-law and niece out to dinner at the Martin Hotel. We hadn't been in a long time and it was great, although basically between all the talking (with folks from Paradise, my second or third cousin, my drunk high school friend, and others) hard to eat all that food. We drove out to the ranch under a big moon. The next day was about ranch work.

Loving life, Renee with Lassie, Dixie, Coco and some other horses

Out workin'

Riding

It's baby time at the ranch!

But in the afternoon, a bit sore from riding and roping, we drove up into the mountains for our scouting trip. I pretty much knew the spot we were going, but really know nothing about leks. Leks are the mating dance sites of male sage grouse, they do a dance there to attract females (although, according to our training, which is where this info is paraphrased—I hope not badly—from, the dance doesn't really have much to do with the actual attraction of the female, which has to do with the mating call itself).

Secal matter

Checking out the lek

Bartlett Peak

Either way, l-e-k spells adventure. It is always a pleasure to explore into the spod of whale mountains blowing their way south that is the Black Rock Range. Our site was a nondescript hillside above a flat with some water. When we arrived for scouting we saw wild horses and a herd of antelope. As we walked up the hills we only saw old sign, but as we got higher we jumped three grouse across the draw and the sign got fresh: both the j-shaped feces of male sage grouse and their secal matter. Yes, that's not wrong, secal, which is basically like it's f-named cousin, but coming from the mouth. Neato. Sage grouse are dependent on sagebrush, but sagebrush has a lot of stuff that can't be digested, so hence secal matter.

Exploring

View of Bartlett Peak

View of Bartlett Peak

Counting

There are sage grouse in this picture, I swear (the white dots)

Lek counting

Mountain and moon

After exploring the lek and planning our strategy for the predawn, we drove back down and then up along Bartlett Creek toward a historic lek listed on our map. It was fun going higher and it is amazing to get different views of Barlett Peak, but the site has recently been burned over and although we saw some old sign nothing like the main site. Then we started hiking out toward another lek, but were overtaken by darkness so it was back to bed for our decided upon 4:45 wake up to make it back up into the mountains (about 10 miles) by 5:45. Our timing turned out to be good and after the dark drive up we arrived with time to set up our borrowed spotting scope before dawn. The lek was definitely active. Even before we could see we could hear their call (if you listen to this, close your eyes and imagine yourself in a giant desert predawn, and then imagine that, more than a quarter mile away, you can hear this call from many sage grouse across the clear morning). The "count" is actually four counts by each person, and as it got later we got some great views of active sage grouse doing their strut, and even a few antelope cruising right through the lek.

Then it was back down the mountain for the ranch's traditional Easter Egg Hunt, some quality lazing, a great lunch, and the long, happy, satisfied, and tired drive back to Reno.

Easter Egg hunting

Some nice rest

lekkity lek lek lek