Hello everyone, weather has started to become spring-like, with a 60 degree day yesterday. Almost all of the snow has melted; Robins and Blue Birds have made their return. It is only a matter of time until all the snow is gone in the lower elevations and the ice melts off the rivers and lakes that surround us. It has been a pretty fun month in the high desert of Wyoming. Sage grouse have started their mating rituals on their leks. For those of you that don’t know what a lek is, I will give a brief description. 

Signs of active leks include feathers, droppings, and tracks. A Lek is a traditional courtship display which is attended by male sage-grouse in or adjacent to sagebrush dominated habitat. These strutting males attract female sage-grouse by the brilliant feather colors and sounds made by the male sage-grouse. Leks are counted at 7-10 day intervals over a 3-4 week period after the peak of mating activity. Some leks in the KFO can have as many as 150 birds at any given time, others only contain 30 or less birds. The BLM is not able to count every lek in the Kemmerer Field Office, we receive help from the Wyoming Game and Fish and other volunteers. Even with all this help some leks will go uncounted.

I have spent much of my morning hours driving around doing lek counts, to give wildlife managers an educated idea of sage-grouse populations. It’s been great being able to get out into the field and take a break from writing NEPA papers. Until next time, I hope everyone has fun!

Jeremy Sykes

Bureau of Land Management

Kemmerer, Wyoming