Sage Grouse 



Sage grouse were the most abundant game bird species in this 

 area. Five strutting grounds were located on or near the 

 Hanging Woman Creek study area (Figure 30). These are 

 concentrated in the southern portion along the Corral Creek, 

 Trail Creek and Hanging Woman Creek bottom lands. The largest 

 of the grounds, the Corral Creek ground, had 73 birds (male 

 and female) using it one morning during the 1980 breeding 

 season. The average number of cocks observed at the four 

 grounds within the study area boundary in 1980 was 23.9 birds 

 (Table 40). 



Sage grouse were observed in all seasons during the study. 

 The Corral Creek sagebrush bottoms and uplands appear to be 

 an important wintering area for sage grouse. 



Twelve sage grouse broods, averaging 49 young per brood, 

 were observed in the Hanging Woman study area in the summer of 

 1979. This represented good recruitment (Wallestad 1975) 

 and coupled with an easy winter resulted in a large population 

 increase o The number of cocks present on the two grounds 

 observed both years increased from 36 to 72 (Table 40). This 

 amounted to a 100 percent increase. Possibly the 1979 numbers 

 observed were somewhat lower than the actual population levels. 



Ring-necked Pheasant 



Pheasants were observed along the Hanging Woman Creek bottom. 

 A pheasant crow count survey was conducted during the 1979 

 breeding season. Birds were heard on 4 of the 12 stops. The 

 average number of calls per stop was a relatively low 0.5. 

 This low population density is probably the result of a 

 scarcity of deciduous shrubs in the creekbottom vegetation 

 types. 



Waterfowl 



Six waterfowl species were observed on the Hanging Woman 

 Creek study area (Table 41). The most common species observed 

 was the mallard. Only one brood of ducks was observed. That 

 was a group of 13 young blue-winged teals with one adult 

 feeding in a road side pond in the early summer of 1979. As 

 in other portions of southeastern Montana, the Hanging Woman 

 Creek area suffered through severe drought conditions in the 

 spring and summer of 1980. Consequently the reservoirs were 

 dry and offered little or no breeding habitat for waterfowl. 



Songbirds 



Seventy-eight species of birds, including game species, were 

 observed on the study area (Table 41). The goshawk. Cooper's 

 hawk, ferruginous hawk, golden eagle, bald eagle, prairie falcon, 

 upland sandpiper, burrowing owl, mountain blue bird, and Brewer's 



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