Finally! Our hard work getting the leks set up for acoustic monitoring have finally paid off. Erin and I loaded up the Rhino with a big battery, rack case, laptop, and our other gear and headed to Preacher lek. It was our first day with the mics out this year, and we (me) managed to forget a couple of things. Luckily nothing critical, and we were still able to capture our first grouse sounds of the season. Preacher Lek wasn’t exactly hopping- only 2 females first thing in the morning. We were treated to a beautiful view of the sunrise painting the snow-covered Winds.



In the afternoon we loaded up the truck and drove to Chugwater. Our first lek with stakes installed on it was our last with microphones- we got an 8-channel array set up in a few hours there. On the way back we took a slight detour and headed up to the large promontory with the water tank near Chugwater. This place has spectacular views in almost all directions.