Music, dancing and the occasional fight

I went to a couple of dances last week, watched the participants bust some impressive moves, and even saw a fight.

It was like being 16 again.

Except I wasn’t dancing or even invited to these particular soirees that played out in the early morning light.

It’s springtime on the prairie and the grouse are on the leks, communal areas where the males engage in courtship displays.

I’d been to the sharptail lek before. For most of the year it’s simply a nondescript bare hilltop next to a lonely stretch of gravel road. But come April at first light the joint is jumpin’. The sharpies buzz and chirp, leap into the air and run at each other, wings extended low to the ground. Then they stop as if one of them yelled “Freeze,” and they stand motionless for a few seconds until the dance resumes.

I’m well acquainted with these particular sharpies. I’m sure I’ve shot at and missed a number of them.

Across the valley from where the sharptail perform their mating ritual is another lek of a different ilk, this one in a clearing of sagebrush. Two dozen male sage grouse there fan their tails and puff out their chests hoping to attract the attention of the drab female birds lying motionless in the short grass.

If the sharptail are dancers, these guys are posers, the frenetic energy of the sharpies’ lek replaced by stately posturing, and what appears to be a form of chest bumping.

I hadn’t seen a single sage grouse last hunting season so it was good to see all these birds on the lek. In a few weeks they’ll disperse again and go who-knows-where. It’s just nice to know they’re still out there.

While sitting in the pickup watching the sage grouse through a spotting scope, I kept hearing the crows of rooster pheasants. Pheasants don’t gather on leks like grouse, but are just as engaged as their feathered kin in springtime mating rituals. However, instead of dancing, roosters prefer to mix it up. On my way to the lek that morning, I watched two of them fighting on the side of the road. It was dry enough that they even raised a small cloud of dust.

In a few weeks the leks will once again be empty, much like the old abandoned community halls that dot this sparsely settled land. But come next spring there will be music and dancing and even the occasional fight.

Count on it.

Parker Heinlein is at

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