Hello Tweets:



Just wanted to share an exciting experience I had yesterday. Finally, after
my umpteenth visit to Leahy Junction, I was rewarded with some outstanding
viewing of the Greater sage grouse. This bird was a long searched-for
lifer, having missed it on many prior visits to the area. I can guarantee
it was worth waiting for.



What an incredible show!!!! I arrived about 0530 to the sight of a bird
flying over the road from the east. Came up to the parking spot by the berm
and could hear the birds before seeing them. Such an impressive sight!
Even in the pre-dawn light, I could see the white breast feathers of the
displaying males. It really reminded me of the bustards from ?down-under?.
Their chests were all puffed out, creating the appearance of a thick boa
coating their entire fronts. As the birds held their wings forward and up,
they would blow air and cause a portion of the skin (?) in the central areas
of the chest to ?poof? out, displaying two large pink elongated ovals. This
appeared to be the action creating the sounds that followed, albeit a bit
later, given the distance to the road. The birds had beautiful tails, a
wonderful arrangement of feathers of differing lengths, the pattern being a
more solid central disc with radiating feathery borders- very striking. The
sounds these birds made were even more amazing, a bit bizarre and certainly
nothing similar to the music of songbirds, yet I assume quite pleasing to
the females of this species. They produced quite a variety of utterances,
some similar to the very human sounds of gas being expelled, others more
like a dripping faucet with a very metallic sort of finish. There was
definitely a hierarchy in place, with the alpha bird smack dab in the middle
of the lek in a very well exposed and somewhat elevated area with the other
males radiating out to the sides. This central display area appeared to be
almost devoid of any tall vegetation that might obscure this moving
performance. There were 13 displaying males seen over an expanse of several
acres. However, the alpha appeared to be the only one in the group actually
entertaining the company of the four females that I saw in the 90 minutes of
observing the lek. Could there really be so few females in this area? As
one moved farther from the center, the area became more obscured by
sagebrush, and some birds were even displaying in small depressions,
certainly more difficult to see and most decidedly, not ?center court?.
None was lucky enough to have caught the attention of a female counterpart.
Interestingly enough, the females seemed entirely disinterested, feeding
almost the entire time, or staring off into space for short periods; they
certainly were not attentive to the alpha male in a way that I could
observe. One of the four females wandered off about 30 minutes after my
arrival and then another two followed suit about 30 minutes later.
Eventually all 13 males seemed to be putting on their show for the exclusive
pleasure of one remaining bird. In addition, quite fascinating was the size
difference between these four birds, the female that stayed the longest was
also about one and a half times the size of the other three females, a quite
noticeable difference. As I left the lek a bit after seven, the males were
still going strong, all 13 of them, not seeming to tire from all the
activity. I can?t imagine all the energy required to keep up a performance
of this sort. All I can say is they should bottle it and make a fortune!



Also enjoyed many other sights and sounds on this two-day trip. Pygmy and
White breasted Nuthatches at the Cle?Elum airport and a White-headed
Woodpecker at the Swauk cemetery. Just a lone male, no female is sight. I
stayed about an hour to see if a female would show up, but no go. Also had
a Northern Shrike on the Swauk Prairie as well as both Mountain and Western
Bluebirds. The Savannah Sparrows were up and singing.



Had good luck with owls, 4 Great Horned, (Smithson Rd, Mansfield, Grand
Coulee and Lower Crab Creek), 2 Long Eared (Waterville plateau and lower
Crab Creek) and 1 Burrowing (Dodson Rd).



Also on the Waterville were small numbers of Horned Larks, even fewer Snow
Buntings and one lone Lapland Longspur.



At Lenore Lake, on the rock cliffs on the east side of the road was a pair
of Prairie Falcons, appearing to be doing some courtship and nest site
evaluation.



Sandhill Cranes were plentiful around Othello and saw 2 Long-billed Curlews
in the farm fields.



Lower Crab Creek yielded 3 Loggerhead Shrikes and countless singing Western
Meadowlarks.



Overall, it was a beautiful and rewarding couple of days.



Marissa J. Benavente

Seattle, WA

junebugrocks at comcast.net


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