More Grassland Chickens

We’ve crisscrossed the time zones so often in the last 24 hours that I didn’t even know what time it was when I got up; but it doesn’t much matter that early in the morning in any case! Mitch (www.sandhillsmotel.com) loaded us up at 4, Mountain Time, I guess, for the drive north of Mullen to yet another schoolbus in the Sandhills of Nebraska. Fortunately, the wind had died down, but it was still cold and snowy, and we shivered until the birds showed up and made us forget that “unnecessary” layer we’d left in our rooms.

By the time we left, at least 14 male Sharp-tailed Grouse had appeared on the lek, sometimes just a couple of feet from the iced-over windows of the bus, sometimes even beneath the bus, whence their cackles and rattles issued unabated. The dance was considerably more frenzied than that of their cousins yesterday evening: at least 3, perhaps as many as 6, female Sharp-tails visited the lek while we were there, each time causing an unbelievable ruckus as every male danced and cackled on his little territory. I love prairie-chickens, but I have to admit that I enjoy the antics of the Sharp-tails even more, and it’s always a treat to have them so close that you can hear not only the high-pitched buzz of the tail feathers but the thudding of their feet as they whirl and spin. If you’ve never seen these birds, you need to!

Breakfast at Denise’s in Mullen (recommended!), then south through the hills to North Platte. I’d pretty much given up on the bird when a gray form appeared on a telephone wire: Northern Shrike, a splendid, close bird hunting in the grass along the roadside. We’d seen an arriving Loggerhead Shrike a couple of days ago at Wood River, so the comparison was especially gratifying.