This spring was my first experience with the Greater Sage-grouse. Watching 15 to 20 males competing for females is fascinating. Especially when the females chose just one or two males to mate with.
Threatened, yes, but progress is being made to keep them off of the endangered species list. Ranchers are seeing what the listing would do to their lively hood by tying up large tracts of public grazing lands. They are now willing participants, for the most part, to keep livestock off of the Leks during the matting season, marking fences that they have a tendency to fly into near the leks and keeping development away from the sensitive areas. Hopefully, it won't be too little to late for the Grouse.
Canon 7Dii, Canon 400 2.8 w/ 1.4 ext. ISO800. 1/800 sec @ f8. PP in LR4. slight crop for composition
Comments always appreciated.
Thanks for looking.
Comments
7 commentsExcellent, Neil. I really like the angle of the light and the low pov. Nice to have that many males on the lek.
Hi Neil
The photograph of the Great Sage-grouse realy pops. The lighting and detail are great.
Peter
Nice detail, good light, pleasing background. Excellent.
Very nice portrait of this handsome fellow strutting his stuff Neil.I really like the lighting in this photo and how it enhances the tail feathers.
Sweet One
Sweet light and great low angle. The strutting Sage Grouse is fascinating.
Lovely portrait of this strutting male, Neil. With all lekking grouse, the angle of the bird is a difficult choice. I'm not sure the straight profile like this is ideal, but it is interesting.
Neil: excellent light, subject and composition. The profile shot provides a much more accurate sense of how inflated their chests become, much more so than a head on shot would. My only minor suggestion would be to dodge the whites on the neck just a bit. Excellent otherwise. Richard