Published May 18th, 2024, in the Walla Walla Union Bulletin
Rain hammered upon the camper roof throughout the night, robbing me of the restful sleep I envisioned when planning a trip to the north-central scablands. Spring in the scablands is purely magical, and I often find myself float-fishing for trout on the many good fishing lakes. This trip was something different, however.
Rousing groggily to the 4:00 a.m. alarm meant my sleepless night would soon be rewarded with a cold, wet sit in the dark. Surrounded by Columbian sharp-tailed grouse habitat, I was about to embark on my first-ever lek survey to assist the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) in monitoring one of this species’ seven fragile populations in Washington State.
We’ve all heard the adage that Columbia River salmon once returned so abundant that one could “walk across their backs.” Well, the story is similar for the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse. When the west was settled, sharp-tailed grouse numbered in the millions. Eastern Washington was largely shrub-steppe habitat and supported hundreds of thousands of the subspecies “Columbian” sharp-tailed grouse. They were commonplace. But, like the passenger pigeon, no one considered they would ever face extinction.
A tragedy of being human is that we often fail to notice a gradual decline in something so familiar until we’ve slipped past the point of recovery. The bird’s initial decline was noted as early as the 1950s, and as the vast Washington shrub-steppe disappeared an acre at a time, the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse followed.
The temperature plummeted with the falling rain, which soon turned to heavy snow. The veil of large white flakes impaired visibility on the greasy gravel road, not to mention the waves of muddy water splashing over the windshield from large puddles.
Thirty minutes later, Malika, George, and I sat in the snow overlooking a several-hundred-acre basin supporting a handful of historic and active sharp-tail “leks”. North American grasslands grouse – sharp-tails, sage grouse, and prairie chickens – use these traditional habitat areas year after year where males perform courtship rituals and compete for mates. The word “lek” combines the idea of “mating” (from the Swedish “lek”) and the notion of a “place” (from the Swedish “ställe”). In Swedish, “lekställe” directly translates to “mating ground”[1].
Sharp-tail males flash their “superciliary combs,” or sunflower-yellow eyebrows, and their “drum nape,” which are violet-colored air sacs on either side of their neck, while bowing with their tails high and wings extended, looking like a plane dropping onto the runway. They shuffle and tap their feet swiftly and click their two namesake pointed tailfeathers as they dance. Their tailfeathers clicking sounds like an old film reel movie playing as the birds spin about. In areas with strong sharp-tail populations, grasses on the lek can become beaten down from weeks of morning dancing, “hooting, clucking, and gobbling” rituals.
While I knew we overlooked an active lek, sharp-tails would only dance in my head this morning. We eagerly awaited dawn, listening for any hint of these mythical birds while snowflakes noisily pattered our synthetic jacket hoods. I had seen sharp-tails by the dozen in Montana and the Dakotas, but to see Columbian sharp-tails on their native Washington soil was a spectacle I longed to behold.
Survey protocol was to walk the lek about 45 minutes after sunrise. By then, any birds on an active lek would at least be heard if not seen, and the lek activity would be waning for the day. Flushing the birds provides more accurate counts and allows surveyors to search for scat and feathers; the feathers can be used for genetic testing. Due to the snow and no sign or sound of the birds, we left the lek without bothering to walk it as no feathers or scat would have been visible.
Back at camp, we all returned to our respective mobile shelters and wiled away the day, watching the snow fall, reading, and preparing for another cold morning.
The next morning dawned frigid cold, crystal clear, and with a million shimmering stars. Malika and I went alone to the same lek as before and again awaited dawn while a chorus of wildlife warmed their voices.
“If I were a grouse, I would be dancing on a morning like this,” I said as we plopped down in the dark with our ears tuned to the sharp-tail channel.
Canada geese, mallards, and a hundred other waterfowl competed with a pack of coyotes in every compass direction for the award of “most obnoxious morning song,” but something different drifted in from our left. The low, two-pitched cluck from what sounded like a single bird somewhere in the grasses was a new sound for both of us.
“I think that’s a sharp-tail,” Malika whispered.
“So do I,” I replied while shifting to scan the lek with my binoculars.
We never spotted the birds from where we sat, but around 7:00 a.m., we strolled down onto the lek in search of scat and feathers. The sun glistened upon the frost-encrusted bunchgrasses in the 27-degree stillness. We walked more than 100 yards of what appeared to be prime lek without a speck of sign, but as Malika turned to make a pass back, the slap of upland bird wings grabbed my ears. My head snapped right so fast that I nearly pulled a neck muscle. The tell-tale flushing “chuckle” of a sharp-tailed grouse was so exciting that I yelled, “Sharp-tailed grouse!” while pointing at the fleeing bird. Moments later, a second bird lifted off, chuckling as it raced toward the horizon.
We finished walking the lek with no further sign of birds, but the sun shining warmly upon our shoulders fortified our sense of triumph. Malika was a 20-year-old college undergrad with a fresh notion of becoming a wildlife biologist. Before that weekend, she had no clue what a sharp-tailed grouse was, much less any awareness of the bird’s struggle for existence in Washington State. The experience was unique for us in different ways, although seeing a sharp-tail in Washington was a first for us both.
For Malika, it was a cool “sciency” encounter with an upland bird. For me, it was like stumbling upon delicate frost flowers or catching a glimpse of UFO-shaped lenticular clouds. These natural phenomena exist, but they are rare enough that it’s unlikely to experience them.
That chuckling sharp-tail flush echoed through my mind on the drive home. Just seven remnant populations of Columbian sharp-tailed grouse remain in Douglas, Lincoln, and Okanogan Counties. The total Washington population is fewer than 1,000 birds, and the largest individual population remains on the Colville Reservation. Columbian sharp-tails occupy approximately three percent of their historic Washington range, making habitat loss events like the September 7th, 2020, Whiney Fire that torched over 127,000 acres a significant threat. That’s a large enough area to wipe out one of the remaining populations completely.
The Colville Tribes are deeply invested in Columbian sharp-tailed grouse conservation efforts, working alongside the WDFW, Bonneville Power Administration, and local Public Utility Districts in the upper Columbia River. According to the WDFW, the Colville Tribes began assisting with translocation efforts as far back as 1999 (possibly before) by providing birds from the Reservation to be released at the WDFW 9,000-acre Scotch Creek Wildlife Area in Okanogan County. The BPA paid for the Scotch Creek land acquisition with mitigation funds for the operation and electricity sales from Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee Dams.
The Columbian sharp-tailed grouse is classified as “endangered” in Washington and protected from hunting. With ongoing efforts by the Colville Tribes, WDFW, and non-profits, Washington’s sharp-tailed grouse can hang on, but how long is unknown.
[1] Lek – Words For Things You Didn’t Know Have Names, Vol. 3 | Merriam-Webster
Cover Photo by the US Fish and Wildlife Service
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