I was hoping to have something to post at least once a week, but I've come to discover that I can't be creative on a whim. Well, I AM working on Of Sun and Moon, though with any luck at all that title will finally change and be a decent title instead of a working one. I have a drawing I want to post but I have to wait until my office is my own again. So by the end of the weekend.

Thunderstorms are making my work very difficult. It is hard enough to track Greater Sage Grouse over several hundred square miles and up and down mountains, but when you have to dodge thunderstorms three or four times a day, it is even harder. I got run off of each one of my locations at some point this week. I don't mind working in the rain, but when you have to wander out in an open area (no trees) with a radio antennae in your hand, you might as well have a huge sign that says: Here I am Lightning! Strike me down! Not my first choice of working conditions. Makes it cold too.

I love my job. I wake up in the morning and step out of my trailer and the first thing I see is a moose in the aspen trees. How many people can say that! I also saw my first baby pronghorn of the summer. I hope to see many more. Most of the nests we've been tracking have hatched so now I get to track the Grouse and their broods. I have actually seen chicks, which I probably should not have because it means I'm getting too close but the way that the weather screws with the radio signals...I'm not surprised. At least I didn't get so close that the hens flew away and abandoned the broods. Each hen has come back to the babies. Soon we'll be going out at night and counting the chicks. That'll be fun. Hope I don't get eaten by a cougar.

And after all that ranting it occurs to me that many of you don't actually know what I do. I am working for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. I'm a field tech basically. I do the grunt work. The project I'm working on is tracking and monitoring Greater Sage Grouse to collect data on habitat use, survival, reproduction, and general movements. There's a lot of stuff that goes into that, but for the most part right now, I drive around sagebrush country in a brand new 2009 Nissan Titan, tracking radio collared Greater Sage Grouse hens with an antennae and receiver to determine where they are going and nesting and raising their broods. It's hard work, but good work.

That's the best kind of work.