BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Dracon" data-source="post: 3256894" data-attributes="member: 14799">Perhaps this is paying homage to Gilmore Girl's complaint that binocular guys like us aren't representative of birders.  But this morning while eating breakfast and on line looking at the dreary and dismal articles which pass for news, my wife who was at our bay window, which sits ten feet above our feeders, suddenly said, "John, come quick!"  This means something unusual outside had come into view.My first thought was that a Lazuli Bunting had arrived.  So far this summer we have only seen one.  But my wife who has an exceptional ability to spot anything, bird or beast, saw something else.  This turned out to be a small covey of sharp-tailed grouse.  They were easy to spot in the short grass of my neighbor's property, which borders the north fork of the Smith River.  That neighbor is an absentee landlord who leases his fifteen acres to some people who have four horses.  It has become what we call in Montana a horse ghetto, land badly overgrazed and filling in with noxious weeds, much to the chagrin of his surrounding neighbors, including me.  What makes this situation even more galling is the fact that the lady horse owner claims to have a degree in range management.  There are none so blind as those who cannot see.My property is reserved for what I call the "critters", land bound or winged, and they use it all the time.Seeing the sharp-tailed grouse was a real treat.  There were seven, the proud but watchful parents and five chicks constantly on the move picking up grass seed.  They were moving towards my property which would become a sanctuary with the mixture of tall grass, alfalfa and sage.  They made it safely.  These are the first sharp-tailed grouse we have seen from our bay window in the ten years of living here.  My first introduction to the grouse was in 1948, when my mother, brother, and twin sister and I arrived on our single speed, coaster brake, balloon tired Schwinn bikes in a small town called Moccasin.  We had peddled from central Wisconsin, across Minnesota, and halfway through South Dakota before  the hot winds of August dried us out. From there it was riding on a trains with numerous whistle stops before reaching Moccasin.Moccasin was located in the middle of Montana in Judith Basin County.  The area had had a series of bumper wheat crops, and it was a sharp-tailed grouse paradise.  I was too young at age 14 to hunt.  But several gandy dancers who lived in Moccasin would take me along to help spot the grouse.  The harvest being over, the grouse would hang on the edges of the stubble fields and were easy to spot.My role was to find the grouse after they had been shot (we didn't need a dog), and of course I eagerly sprinted into the stubble after the pungent odor of burnt power had drifted away, and I fetched them like a prize winning retriever. This was my wife's first introduction to the Sharp-Tailed.  We even used one of our spotting scopes for a real intimate look at their coloration.  When not in the breeding mode, Sharp-Tailed grouse are well camouflaged with various shades of brown and grey and white.  Anyway, they made our morning.John</blockquote>

Verification