The above is a short video I took last spring of a Columbian sharp-tailed grouse. This particular bird is taking in the scene after a morning of dancing on the lek. If you listen closely, you can hear a few optimistic males still dancing in the background. 

Snow is falling outside, putting a fresh six inches atop a weeks-old layer of deep, crusty snow. My little part of Idaho has been covered up for the better part of a month. It’s the kind of snow that knocks back our local populations of huns and chukar because it covers up the food and sometimes the roosting cover as well. There are a few steep and windblown slopes that are snow free and will keep some birds going, but there is deep snow on much of the best bird country.

It’s been long enough and cold enough that I even worry a bit about pheasants and sharp-tailed grouse, though those are much hardier birds. Last week, I saw a handful of grouse graveling on the side of the highway and I took it to be a bad sign. Still, sharpies can actually burrow under the snow for food and protection and they are native to some of the toughest places you can imagine. Their range straddles the northern plains from Wisconsin to Washington state and unlike pheasants, which share some of that range, they don’t need grain crops to get by.

Technically, it’s still hunting season in Idaho; you can hunt chukar and Hungarian partridge until the end of January. But many – myself included – will hang it up for the year and let the birds alone to survive the cold and snow.

Hopefully, I’ll get out of the snow and hunt a few more days before the end of the season, but part of me is already moving on to spring and fly fishing and the sound of sharpies drumming on the leks.