THE SAGE GROUSE 



By T. GILBERT PEARSON 



Cfje Rational Hfisfociation of ^ubution .Societies; 



EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 91 



On a beautiful July evening our little party left the open waters of Lower 

 Klamath Lake and slowly made its way up a combined creek and canal to 

 Laird's Landing. At the little wharf the Audubon patrol-boat 'Grebe' came to 

 rest, and we stepped out to find before us the ranch-buildings of a small 

 stock-raiser lying in a semi-circle of ragged desert hills that rose in uneven 

 terraces to the distant horizon. A Western Meadowlark was singing in the 

 yard and numerous Mourning Doves, the most ubiquitous bird in North 

 America, were flying about. In the one small cluster of trees within sight 

 Bullock's Orioles were nesting. Snipe and Phalaropes were brooding their 

 eggs in the neighboring marsh, and a Western Horned Owl had only the night 

 before moved her young from the big barn to the trees where the Orioles' 

 hammock nests swung. 



These evidences of bird-life were noted within a few minutes after landing, 

 but we had come in quest of something else — we sought a certain bird which the 

 writer had never seen. There were plenty in the neighborhood we were told, 

 and to find them we need only walk out on the sage-clad hills. The country 

 had once been an interminable jumble of lava beds disgorged from a heated and 

 groaning earth. On every hand lay blocks of black volcanic rock, but the rain 

 and frost of centuries had worn away the igneous mass and made the soil that 

 now furnished a scanty foothold for the sage. Over these silent wastes we 

 walked. Twice we were saluted by the song of the Sage Thrasher, and thrice 

 the trilling, canary-like notes of the Brewer's Sparrow were borne to our ears. 



Suddenly, only a few feet distant, a large bird burst from cover and went 

 rushing away through the air at a good rate. To my startled gaze it seemed 

 almost as large as a Turkey, although probably it weighed not more than 

 four pounds. Its flight was distinctive. Turning its body to the left it gave 

 four hasty wing-beats, then sailed on an even keel, only to turn to the right 

 in another moment and repeat the performance. Thus alternately saiHng and 

 flying, while turning its body first to one side and then to the other, it pursued 

 its course for perhaps a third of a mile and dropped again among the sage-brush. 

 We had found the object we sought, the great Sage Grouse of the desert 

 plains, the largest Grouse in the world save the Capercaillie of Europe. From 

 bill-tip to tail-tip a grown male measures two and a half feet, and the expanse 

 of its wings is a yard or more. 



This was near the northern boundary of California and at almost the 

 westernmost limit of the bird's range. 



(112) 



