I shouldn’t write posts about how quickly the end of the season is approaching, or it might actually arrive even faster. In a surprise turn of events, we are done with sound recording (and most likely fembot experiments) on Monument Lek as of today. We conducted a third experimental trial at Monument this morning. My routine was a little off- the birds all flushed before 6, before I’d even turned on my sound recording gear. They started coming back about 45 minutes later, and at that point I was rushing to get my recording projects set up and get my video camera focused on one of the returning females.

At this point I noticed one of the channels had a lot of static, but it was a little ways into the recording session that I realized 4 of the channels were not showing any response to the gusts of wind coming through. Further investigation revealed that there was no apparent input based on equalizers on the digitizing pre-amp. After the problem persisted when I shut everything down and started it back up, it left a few possibilities: 1) the phantom power wasn’t working (I eliminated this hypothesis by plugging cables from working channels into channels that weren’t working, and visa versa); 2) the mics were not plugged in properly, or 3) there was a problem with the cables themselves. I continued recording during the experiment on our remaining nine or ten channels, and it wasn’t until I could pack up the recording gear and get into the tub with the extra spools of cable that I could confirm theory #3. Something had chewed through several of the cables, sometimes multiple loops of the same cable!

This would have been a real pain to fix, and we might not have had time to get back to Monument anyway, so it seemed like a good idea to pull the Monument cables this afternoon, before our anonymous cable muncher could destroy any more.  Luckily pulling cables is usually a lot quicker than digging the trenches to put them in, so we were able to wipe down and coil all the cables, all the while flagging any spots where we would need to repair cables. Julia found another rattlesnake near the lek- this one put on a really good show for our cameras. I’m sure it is just coincidence that we found two rattlers so close to the lek, but it does make me feel a little bit glad that most years it is too cold for them to come out before we pack up and leave for California.

Once again, the field season has flown by at lightning speed. I’m still wrapping my brain around the fact the crew is leaving us in a week- it seems like just a few days ago I was driving into town to meet them and lead them up to camp. Yet here we are, with just a few days to get as much data as possible, proof all the data, and do as much take-down of the equipment as possible. Gail, Anna, and I will be here for another week or so, but there are some big tasks, like pulling up the thousands of meters of microphone cables we have out there, that are much easier to tackle with a larger group.

We are trying to wrap up our robot experiments, but it has been somewhat frustrating going over the past couple of days. For two consecutive days, we had golden eagles flush the birds on the lek before we could run an experiment. Seeing an eagle is always a treat, especially seeing one power low over the lek and wheel after fleeing grouse, but at this point in the season, I think a more welcome sight would be Gail lifting the edge of the blind up to readmit the fembot after a successful trial.  We’ve completed second experiments at Chugwater, Monument, and half of Cottontail, but the last section of Cottontail has eluded us at least 3 times now, and we would love to have a third repetition on all the leks to help us better capture the variation in response among individuals, treatments (interested versus disinterested behavior), leks, and time in the season.

Small prairie rattlesnake near Monument Lek

The statewide manager of sage-grouse programs, Tom Christiansen, came out with us yesterday. He enjoyed actually getting to see a lek up close (Wyoming Game and Fish biologists are generally looking from a distance, and only staying at each lek long enough to obtain an accurate count). While the dramatic eagle attack precluded him seeing the robot interacting with real birds, Gail was able to do a small demo before we packed up our gear. He also got to see our first rattlesnake of the year- a prairie rattler that Anna and Julia saw crossing the road.

Tom, Anna, and Julia enjoying a beautiful rattlesnake