Something different for Friday... Lots of information about the Greater Sage Grouse, with a coloring book and other things for kids in the last link.

Corrected:  And, I apologize for mistakes made in spelling, syntax and grammar.  I was doing this very late.  Why the quote is still so full of bugs, I have no idea.

You can watch a video from Cornell Lab of Ornithology about the Lekking ground dances of the Great Sage Grouse.  Is that cool or what?

See it HERE

This will be a sort of Friday tails post.  The Greater Sage Grouse, along with other lesser Grouse, used to be innumerably strong, strung out in huge areas along the sage plains.  Now they are being considered for listing as "Endangered".  That's pretty freaking sad, you know?

From Yellowstonegate.com
The page is very slow to load

 This is an excerpt from THIS government document.  If the future of this amazing bird is of interest to you, I urge you to read the whole document:

"2.2. Historic Status and Distribution
Sage-grouse originally occurred in 16 states
and three provinces (Aldrich 1963, Johnsgard
1973), and their distribution closely approximated
that of sagebrush. Forests, deserts, rivers and
mountain ranges fragmented the birds’ original
distribution naturally (Braun 1998). However,
sage-grouse evolved to use large expanses of shrub
steppe habitat (Connelly et al. 2000c). Early
estimates of sage-grouse abundance were largely
anecdotal, but suggested this species was abundant
in many parts of its range (Braun 1998).

Western settlers reported seeing the skies darkened by large
flocks of sage-grouse. Pioneers described filling
wagons with sage-grouse to provide food for their
communities as well as for miners and other working
groups (Rogers 1964). Both Colonel John
Fremont (1845) and Elliot Coues (1874) reported
that sage-grouse were abundant throughout much of
Wyoming in the early to mid-1800s. Prior to 1870
in Montana and 1900 in Idaho, little or no protection
was afforded these birds (Autenrieth 1981,
Wallestad 1975).

In Colorado, Rogers (1964) indicated that
thousands of sage-grouse were killed
each year to feed participants in the annual “Sagehen
Days” in the town of Craig.

Concerns over population declines date from
the early 1900s (Girard 1937, Hornaday 1916) until
Rusch (1942) reported that, because of the bird’s
scarcity, there were not many localities where they
could be legally killed by the late 1930s and early
1940s. In his book on wildlife conservation, Wing
(1951) listed sage-grouse as a rare and threatened
species in North America, perhaps foreshadowing
current efforts to list sage-grouse as threatened or
endangered under the Endangered Species Act." 

And this next page is beautifully done, and was created by the Sage Grouse Initiative, a group that is dedicated to wildlife conservation through sustainable ranching practices.  There is a special section at thatis called: "Just for Kids"; it includes a printable coloring book as well as a sort of "Where's Waldo" Poster for identifying all the animals found on the Sage Brush Steppes where they all live.

Hope you enjoy it!