"I AM SPARTACUS"...very photo heavy....

Pete,

Sagebrush....

Artemisia tridentata --Big sage native
Artemisia tridentata wyomingensis--Sub species of Big sage, this is the best deer/elk winter range forage of the larger sages native (need a black light for positive ID)
Artemisia nova -- Black Sage native
Artemisia arbuscula -- Little sage native
Attemisia cana -- native

so on and so forth..there are dozens of species and most are native

See: http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=ARTEM

Sage brush can dominate a sagebrush grassland when overgrazing has occurred, and fire suppressed (a cool fire helps maintain/rejuvenate the system -- not a hot fire from excessive build up of plant growth and invasive weeds -- that causes damage). The dynamics of a sagebrush grassland here in the west is controlled by, grazing, fire suppression, agriculture, water usage for irrigation, and introduction of invasive species (cheat grass the way bad guy on the block)..plus a host of other land uses. A sagebrush/grasslands communities species composition changes as the variables are played in various ways..

So yes grazing may reduce native grasses and increase sagebrush as a percentage of individuals or as percent of cover. Sagebrush and sage grouse are always associated together. What the optimum ratio between grass and sagebrush is I do not know off hand, but I am sure is has been researched and published.
 
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Never to old to learn something new.

It has always been a fact I "knew forever" but could never remember where I learned it. I must have been told by my 3rd grade teacher - she was a Democrat - Donchaknow.
 
Ooooooh...... Sagebrush Science...I need a science nerd emoticon

In the research I participated in we found that most of the radio-tagged grouse remained within a 1-mile radius of the lek during the nesting season. Brood rearing occurred in only a slightly larger area. Of course this was in an area of Wyoming that, at the time, had some fairly high sage grouse densities. Experiments we conducted throughout the Wyoming on various methods to control sagebrush encroachment found that rangeland with approximately 12-15% canopy cover consisting of sagebrush received the most use by sage grouse.

Fire and extripation of sagebrush as a result of cheatgrass invasion is only one problem cheat poses for the grouse. The exclusion of native forbs, which are of significant dietary importance during the spring, can also result in the birds not being able to successfully live in what at first glance appears to be a pretty good looking chunk of sage steppe. Habitat loss due to removal for oil and gas and wind and agriculture are big but for many species the effective loss of habitat due to invasives is the "silent killer".

The pictures turned out really nice....especially since we couldn't get right amongst the birds. In the area we looked there are only a couple hundred birds left and we were able to view just over a quarter of that population in the morning. We located 5 different leks including one that had only a single male strutting all by himself. We also saw some areas of native rangeland that had been recently plowed under to expand the dryland farming. Sad but true, some of that sort of activity has been done in response to the potential Endangered Species Act listing and the perception that the government will stop the people from using their land if the bird is present. Some believe it would be better to not have the birds there at all than to modify their current behavior.

And in my defense on the copulation thing. I was also looking at the bird that flew in and then turned back to glimpse the domionant rooster on top of another bird. Since I had just seen hens right next the big daddy I assumed he was putting the sage to one of the girls. It was a lot easier to just scream copulationthan it would have been to say "Hey Steve, I think it is possible that the most dominant bird on the lek has begun to engage in behavior that will ensure his genetic material will be carried into the future and perhaps contribute to the recovery of the species". Oh well, I guess I was wrong...imagine that...a biologist that came up with the wrong conclusion.
 
Nerd? geesh.....if the tag fits? why not a bit of sagebrush science....?

12-15% see someone has that figure......juicy stuff that percent canopy cover...

Yeah the invasive thingy.....combine that with all the other stuff and a bit of West Nile.....
 
showing a smiley wearing a mortar board and those pretty silk rope thingies sitting at the "right hand of God".....

I got a surprising piece of information this week talking with the ass. mgr. of Swanson Hills WMA where the Sharptail and Sage Grouse introductions are going on.....turns out Great Horned Owls are the biggest predator they have and that they tend to target Sage Grouse.....Great Horneds take more Sage Grouse than Coyotes and far more than all of the other avian predators combined the unofficial reason for that being that there are very limited elevated perches in the area and therefore very few Falcons, Ferruginous, Redtails, and Golden Eagles in the area..........add transmission lines from Wind Farms and that all changes.......interesting...

Steve
 
Just remember.....windy farm thingys are green thingy ma bobbers....how dare you say anything against them? Lets all just turn out the lights and go home...
 
I do not know if I have ever seen a lek in a stubble field...

That suprised me a bit as well until I got a look at the area the birds were hanging out in. In all the areas I studied, leks occured in open patches in the sgaebrush mosaic or in areas where there was black sage instead of the big sage. Out where these birds were there was only winter wheat, wheat stubble, and patches of fairly dense big sage. They were just using the open habitat they had available, not because they like it but because that is all there is. Lek fidelity is strong with these birds so it would be interesting to know what these spots looked like before they were converted to wheat fields.
Click to expand...
 
Hey Sutton, I'm not trying to push buttons from a previous thread, but when it was legal, my dad shot em' all the time. If the protection acts get reversed. The chickens may stand a chance. Lets start a petition...hahaha
 
http://www.usu.edu/weeds/plant_species/weedspecies/russianthis.html
http://www.usu.edu/weeds/plant_species/weedspecies/cheatgrass.html

For those of you interested in where Russian thistle and cheat grass came from
 
That's it! From looking at Matt's links it was Russian Thistle that I remembered aka tumbleweed. Nice to know I wasn't completely off my rocker.
 
Steve - Thanks - another bird I have never seen - what a show. The disappearing sage reminds me of how the real prairie grass is very sparse but I have seen some of the true red stuff in Iowa and the Dakotas. You are certainly also right about the show that woodcock put on. Trouble is the light is so low that I doubt many can get a shot of those birds corkscrewing straight up and then twirling all the way to bounce on the ground.
sarge
 
Pete...

If not completely off your rocker,,,what proportion is off thy rocker??? I think mine is at least 50% rockered out.......or at least thistled out...


Matt
 
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