Wyoming - Day 3 - Sage and Sharptail Grouse

SHOW NOTES

Day 3 in Wyoming and today the weather cooperated and Mark, Ron, and Michael were finally able to photograph sage grouse.

3:30  Mark talks about how late they stayed up promoting their social media and although leaving early in the morning, it wasn’t quite early enough to make the right light for the sage grouse.

7:15  Michael explains how the cold weather effects his Red Camera and shares some hacks to prevent the camera from shutting down.

9:28  Mark talks about the cool knee pads that look something like Darth Vader gear and how awesome they are when crawling through the snow and cactus.

10:52  Ron describes how the grouse will stay in the open areas but not far from cover if they need to escape, and how to locate the birds.

13:03  Ron shares the hack of saving your knees and back when photographing grouse, describing the turkey chair.

14:00 Mark tries to explain how he wasn’t sleeping and simply helping Michael out by lying low and letting Michael shoot video. Images attached will explain.

17:30 Michael attempts to convince himself that it’s not always about getting that great shot. Sitting back and watching can be just as fulfilling.

18:18 Ron talks about balancing your exposure for the snow and the white breasts of the sage grouse.

24:06 Ron talks about the ranchers in the area get a bad name, but the ranchers don’t want to see these birds gone. He also explains how the ranchers will remove their livestock during the leck activity in order to not disrupt the birds.

27:50  Michael explains how the three of them left the lek and birds and went to fly the drone documenting and illustrating their story and efforts into the wilderness.

35:02 Wrapping up the end of podcast, listen to the next podcast with more lekking news.