Sage Grouse Count is at hand. Drive up from Phoenix was uneventful; thru Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon - inspired, as everyone who wanted to get there already got there; through Salt Lake on Sunday morning - act of genius as everyone, practically, was at church and the roads were wide open. Things perked up after Monida Pass
the Tendoys were a welcome site (I’ll be seing a lot of them over the next week)
getting close
I bid a fond farewell to I-15 and turn west; Baldy Mountain in the distance
set up camp and Ben shows up with both dogs this year; Kaiser, 90 lbs of German Shorthair
and Sal
off to the leks before dawn; active, males strutting and hens watching, unfortunately everyone scattered for cover when a golden eagle appeared and that was that for the morning
mobile grouse blind
this guy wasn’t quick enough (explosion of feathers at the kill site - could have been an eagle)
more to come at some point (wi-fi is spotty on the back side of Badger Pass)
Hey Jesse;
From that pick I would say that Thumper is a Snowshoe Hare in transition back to summer foliage. Head is too large for the Easter Bunny.
Got lots of them here in Ontario where hind feet are easy to find at times.
That is a cottontail. You know, I’ve been coming to the part of MT for 4 years to do the counts and I’ve never seen a jackrabbit; tons of cottontails, a pygmy (lots of their dens), but never a jackrabbit - weird.
A few people asked me about the bridge - I never really got to enjoy the view because some idiot (won’t mention the state they were from) cut me off as we approached and I was busy keeping truck and trailer from experiencing first-hand how far it was down to the river.
Nice little blue line, not open for another month (can’t tell how many times I’ve been tempted to cut the bend off a fly and drop it in the water just to see what happens)
one of the park staff said a pair of golden eagles have a nest up in there (see them a few times a day, riding thermals above town, cruising the creek, perched on the rocks - no place to be a ground squirrel)
So what part of the country is that…Montana?
Sure was wrong about that bunny though, for they take on a different look in certain areas don’t they…ha!
From the look of that countryside, one would really think you would see the odd Jack Rabbit, but we have the similar thing here in Ontario. Jacks were quite common back in the 60’s, but urban sprawl and modern farming practices basically removed most of their prime habitat here and now I haven’t really seen a Jack Rabbit in a looooooooooooooong time.
I nearly lost my wife in that town one summer a few years back. When I finally located her, she said she had been waiting in a long line of people to get a hamburger at the Hotel Meade. Now that I can reflect on you picture, Scott, I understand why she had to wait so long.
wind was a 0 on the Beaufort Scale and the lek was only about 800 yards so I tried putting the camera on the scope; semi-successful
birds flushed by 8:30 so we took a walkabout (supposed to be some petroglyphs on the hills nearby); didn’t find any petroglyphs but we did get to watch a pair of prairie falcons (turns out the cliffs we were poking around were their home, so we vacated)
and the dogs got to stretch out a bit
back at camp, took a final hike up the surrounding hillside (FS conducting prescribed burn)
Hangman’s Gulch (shows in the lower right of the photo above), where the July 17, 2013 flood originated
