As sage-grouse return to their breeding leks in spring, so do teams that count their numbers. This year, our Trout Creek Ranch property helped make those efforts easier for seasoned biologist Rod Klus.
Going to work in the dark was nothing new for Rod Klus. Neither was driving hours to a special outdoor assignment at dawn. The difference this season was that he’d been retired from it for a year, and this time he could sleep closer to his final destination.
“Doing things like counting sage-grouse and the wildlife surveys are the best part of the job for me,” said Rod. “I always enjoy that, so I don’t mind coming back and doing it for a few weeks.” For nearly 15 years, Rod served as the district wildlife biologist in Harney County with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). Since they were short on people for surveys this spring, he was happy to step in and hike out into the desert he treasures.
As an umbrella species, the greater sage-grouse’s status is an indicator of the health of the broader sagebrush steppe ecosystem and some 350 species that live there. Among other challenges, their habitat is losing native plants to invasive weeds. ODFW is the lead agency for greater sage-grouse population monitoring in Oregon, which includes spring lek surveys, summer brood routes, and hunter harvested wing analysis.
Each spring, sage-grouse congregate on leks (communal breeding grounds) and return year after year to the same places (Oregon’s oldest active lek has been monitored since 1941). This breeding behavior allows biologists to annually count sage-grouse males on leks to measure population estimates and trends.
This large data collection effort goes from March 15 – April 30. More than 100 staff members from ODFW, partner agencies, and volunteers typically spend upwards of 750 combined mornings surveying more than 700 individual leks. Rod’s coverage area was in the Trout Creek and Pueblo Mountains close to Nevada’s border.
To get to the sites, much planning, driving and hiking goes into observing courting displays from a safe and unobtrusive distance. Early is key, since males start puffing out their big white chests at daybreak and calling in loud low tones to attract females who will mate and then nest in sagebrush within two or three miles of the lek. Being out at dawn has its payoffs. Aside from seeing brilliant dances by the birds, sometimes only as white puffballs from a mile away, their calls can echo through the morning air to help locate new leks
“To me, it’s a pretty primitive thing and so it gives you the feeling that you’re some place that’s in pretty good shape ecologically when you’re out there seeing those birds like that,” Rod shared.
This year Rod visited nearly 25 sites, sometimes two or three times to give more precision to the population estimate. The repetition is needed for changes in behavior and to account for birds that have been scared off by coyotes, raptors, or a nesting antelope. Weather is also a factor and he noted that this whole breeding season was delayed by a few weeks.
“Some of the lek sites up in the northern end of the county were still under a foot of snow toward the end of the breeding season,” he recalled. While access was an issue at times, Rod was able to do his work with less time and hassle by staying closer to the survey sites at our Trout Creek Ranch Headquarters. Past trips could mean eight hours of drive time, not to mention the survey time, and the hike out and back. This time he averaged two-hour drives.
“Doing it from down there, it was sweet,” he said thankfully. “You kind of have to go and whatever happens happens. Sometimes you get burnt and get away with it. That was the really nice thing about Trout Creek Ranch. I could go back and take a hot shower and get thawed out after those surveys.”
Rod also came back with a sense of accomplishment since there aren’t many leks that ODFW doesn’t expect to find birds on. “It takes a long time for a lek to disappear. They’ll trickle along with just a few males for a long time sometimes. A few of those will bounce back and get back to their glory days, and some will go away over time, but we’ve pretty much weeded out ones that are truly inactive at this point, so 90% of the sites have grouse that we’re surveying down there.”
Along with monitoring changes on the landscape, Rod really enjoys what Harney County has to offer.
When April ended, Rod went back into retirement, so you won’t find him counting birds at dawn this summer. Actually, his search for solitude means you probably won’t find him at all, but you can imagine him out in the high desert, happily taking it all in all by himself. He enjoys the variety it offers, from bighorn sheep to collared lizards. He’s also impressed with how the landscape can rebound and how sage-grouse are indicators of its health.
“That country in between Sheldon and Hart is pretty unique in that it’s pretty high elevation. You can think you’re not very high up, but you’re 6,000 feet. It’s truly high desert, which kinda makes it unique, and that higher elevation also adds to the precipitation, which makes it pretty productive for things, as far as the habitat and the animals that it can support. It’s wetter than much of the desert around, and the same can be said of the Trout Creeks or the Pueblos,” explained Rod.
As seasons change this year, ODFW will issue a new report on greater sage-grouse populations that includes the birds and leks Rod counted. This will help with conservation plans throughout the state and Trout Creek Ranch. Though it won’t include Rod’s step count or spring morning memories, it will be part of his contributions to a landscape that he loves and knows well.
Feature image: A view of the Pueblo Mountains from Trout Creek Mountains in spring — Rod Klus
Discover details of the highlighted regions
