— Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
Late April on the U.S.-Canada border, pitch-black in the hour before dawn. Snow comes down sideways, making Minnesota State Highway 11 out of Baudette almost invisible from our SUV. We’re following the ghostly lights of another vehicle; at the wheel is Scott Laudenslager, a supervisory wildlife biologist at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). He’s leading us on a wild grouse chase.
A few miles farther along, we turn and rattle our way down a deserted, ice-and-snow-rutted side road that seems to go on forever. But that remoteness is how our quarry prefers it. We’re in search of the “fire grouse,” better-known as the Sharp-tailed Grouse. To Native Americans of the northern prairies, the Sharp-tailed is pheta silo (Sioux) or ishkode mitchihess (Ojibway) — firebird — for the need for fire to keep its grassland habitat open.
Laudenslager skids to a stop. We’re a few yards behind him. Doors silently open, and we’re soon crunching our way 100 yards down a slippery trail across a field, flashlights off. Just visible in the dark is a small hut, a blind with openings for binoculars and cameras. We enter through a door in the back to find slats looking out on a small, snow-dustedwhose DNR office in Baudette manages the blind. “This is the dancing ground, or lek, of the Sharp-tailed Grouse.”
