DIMINISHING SAGEBRUSH SUPERSTAR
AT nearly 8,000 feet in elevation, the air in Gunnison, Colorado, was quite thin in comparison to my Midwestern stomping grounds. Even in May, snow was on every mountain that surrounded the town, and each morning, frost carpeted the area as the sun rose over a landscape with temperatures in the teens. Rocky cliffs near the outskirts of Gunnison gave way to rushing streams that sheltered beavers and a plethora of other riparian animals. In the blink of an eye, the sky could go from blue to gray and the weather from sun to snow.
Originally dominated by sagebrush, the Gunnison Basin is now predominantly covered in lush grass meadows that are used mostly for agriculture and grazing. However, even though the place has the clear touch of man and his ever-present need to alter, wild places still exist, with some very wild animals. Elk, mule deer, and coyotes stroll the meadows, and one animal, in fact, is unique to the basin: the threatened Gunnison Sage-Grouse.
It was around 4 in the morning when my guide and I arrived at our blind in the pitch-dark. Frost covered the blind as well as my camera lens. A little over an hour later, we started to hear the male grouse enter the lek. The sound of their incoming route resembled a fighter plane flying overhead, followed by a
