Spring Break--Part 1: Sage-grouse Trapping

Our family was anxiously awaiting Spring Break this year because Kevin wouldn't have to spend it writing his dissertation. April planned the first activity: sage-grouse trapping! A friend from our ward, Dave D., invited us out to visit one of his study sites and see how he traps, tags, and radio-collars sage-grouse. Friday night as soon as Kevin arrived home, we loaded up the Suburban with all our warm winter clothes and some food and drove to the Deseret Land and Livestock (DLL) Ranch located a few miles past Woodruff, Utah.

We arrived around 9:30 p.m., about 30 minutes before the group left for the trapping. Megan agreed to tend Dallin at Dave's "base camp" (a nice apartment the DLL provides for his work) since trapping conditions were not entirely suitable for keeping an 18-month-old happy until 2:00 a.m. Even though we brought one of his favorite balls, Dallin was a little bit worried when we left.

We bundled up with layers of warm clothing and rode out to the sagebrush sites in this awesome little ATV truck. The other group of field technicians were on a 4-wheeler. Erin sat in the heated cab and talked Dave's ear off, while Kevin, April, and Ian bounced along in the back.

Once in the sage-grouse area, Kevin drove the mini-truck with Erin still engaged in non-stop chatter, while Dave spotlighted from the back with Ian and April. The method is to find a grouse using a spotlight and keep it blinded by the light while someone sneaks up with a net to catch it. We drove, and drove, and drove and looked and looked and looked. We saw a lot of rabbits, scared up a few small birds, but found no grouse...until about 2 hours later.

Dave saw an eye shine in the spotlight, pounded on the roof to let Kevin know to slow down, handed April the spotlight to keep on the bird, grabbed the net, jumped off the truck, and ran up to catch it. And it was a successful catch of a young hen! April got to band it, then Dave weighed it, took some measurements, and released it.

Erin did a victory dance in the back of the truck afterwards!

After the thrill of the first capture, we were all excited to find some more! Soon after, Dave caught a male. Kevin got to hold it down under the net while Dave got ready to take it out.

This grouse was also banded, weighed, and measured, and then it got a fancy radio collar attached around its neck. Only males are collared for this current study. The birds get really stressed during all of this, so you have to work quickly.

Here's the crew with catch #2!

We have to include the token photo of sage-grouse scat:

We found some more groups of grouse, but only caught one more hen. All in all, it was a slow night, but we had a blast. It is always so fun to visit another type of field study and see what the biologists do. We returned to the apartment around 2:00 a.m. Erin had managed to talk non-stop during the entire 4 hours. She laughed over the big bumps, and kept talking about "what a crazy night this is!" Megan and Dallin were snoozing peacefully upon our return, so we climbed into our sleeping bags and slept too.

The next morning we saw Dave's dogs, Buddy, Scout, and Parker.
They are well-trained bird dogs and help him out locating birds during the days.

This is an overview of part of the DLL.

The prairie dogs were very active in the morning, and as we drove out we saw hundreds along the sides of the road! They were not very shy at all.

Some pronghorn graced us with their presence as well.

Dave has invited us back to watch the breeding dances on the leks in another month. We've only seen those on nature shows, so we are jumping at this upcoming opportunity. Stay tuned!