By Lauren Blair

June 4, 2017 - Greater sage grouse are a hit among bird lovers for their bold moves and quirky mating dance, but they're not the only bird in Moffat County, Colorado commanding the stage each spring to win the hearts of their female counterparts.

Imagine James Brown in wind-up toy form, and you might get a sense of the fast-paced moves displayed by the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse. On an early April morning, the male grouse literally shakes its tail feathers as it rapidly stomps its feet and circles the invisible borders of its territory, wings outstretched.

In the audience this morning are two researchers, one a Colorado Parks and Wildlife veteran of more than 30 years and the other a graduate student from the University of Wisconsin Madison.

The birds' stage is an expanse of reclaimed coal mine land at Trapper Mine south of Craig.

The funky and fast-paced rhythms of this bird easily charm, but the researchers are here for the serious business of studying how habitat improvements can translate to increased population numbers.

"It’s a fundamental law of management that the higher quality the habitat, the higher quality the populations of birds," said CPW avian researcher Dr. Tony Apa. "Columbian sharp-tails are doing well, but we think they could do better."

CPW is partnering with both Trapper and Colowyo mines for research and management of sharp-tailed as well as sage grouse, the results of which could inform habitat conservation practices in Moffat County and beyond for years to come.

The truth is, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse inhabit only 10 percent of their former range nationwide, Apa said, though they've managed to fly under the radar of the Endangered Species Act thus far, unlike the greater sage grouse.

Apa hopes to chart a different course for the sharp-tailed grouse by developing a formula to improve habitat, and also by trans-locating the birds to rebuild populations on their historic range.

"We need to be ahead of the curveball on this species, too. We need to be managing them proactively and not reactively," Apa said. "Then everybody benefits in the sense of we have more sharp-tails and there won’t be any threats of ever listing the species."

This April morning, the males are slow to put on their dancing shoes, and no females even show up to the lek, or mating ground. But over the course of four weeks, researchers eventually trapped and tagged 61 female birds.

The females are then tracked to their nests, where researchers await the arrival of the chicks, the first of which hatched just this week. Transmitters are fitted on the tiny baby birds so that they, too, can be tracked through the fall to measure their survival rates and habitat use.

"Not even 50 percent of them survive to the next year," said graduate student and lead research assistant Rachel Harris, who has worked on the project for four years. "Unfortunately, their survival is pretty low."

The study is in its fourth and final year, and researchers will return in five to seven years to see how habitat that has been treated to improve plant diversity correlates with growth in sharp-tailed grouse populations.

"If we plant (certain) species at (certain) rates and we see our numbers increase and our survival increase, then we’ll have a prescription to give private landowners," Apa said.

Over at Colowyo Mine, Parks and Wildlife has been busy not only capturing sharp-tailed grouse for trans-location, but also beginning research on the effects of opening a new mine pit — the Collom expansion — on sage grouse populations.

"Especially with surface pit mining, there’s a lot we need to learn about how to mitigate mine development," Apa said, who hopes to use the information "to help out other surface mines throughout the West."

Colowyo earned CPW's Partner of the Year award in 2016 for their continued support of wildlife conservation. Most recently, the mine donated 4,500 acres of land and $150,000 donated to CPW as part of mitigation for the Collom expansion, said Lee Boughey, spokesperson for Tri-State Generation and Transmission, Inc., which owns and operates Colowyo Mine.

"It really demonstrates how habitat and wildlife conservation can go hand in hand with mining operations," Boughey said. 

Two male Columbian sharp-tailed grouse stand off with each other at an invisible but very well-defined boundary between their respective territories on the lek.