We knew when we woke up that our morning Sharp-tailed Grouse ‘hunting’ session was our last before we had to move on west. After yesterday’s hard graft – for little return – I wasn’t optimistic. We’d already worked out that we weren’t far enough into the hills at the site north of Hayden but the road was impassable – we’d nearly got bogged down in the wet mud on the tack and had seen others do the same. One car abandoned by the roadside had come off the track and needed recovering. Still we arrived for dawn and gave it some time before finally moving on to the Twenty Mile Road site – our last roll of the dice. We parked up between the gate and the ranch on the top of the rise and started scanning the likely lekking spots. Yesterday I’d seen three distant birds in flight which could have been them but I wasn’t sure, so when a single bird, followed by another, landed in the top of a distant bush I was hopeful. Careful checking with scopes by both of us, Jane in the back and me in the front to avoid disturbance and we were confident we had our target! Eventually a male landed on the snow-covered grassy knoll and did a bit of strutting but we suspect any females were the other side of the ridge and out of view – his and ours. Grouse species number two under our belt, we returned to our hotel for breakfast and then headed west to our overnight at the Moosehead Motel, Rangely. Our itinerary was thrown off course when we discovered that the Dinosaur National Monument park was still closed for the winter. We occupied our time with a quick trip into Utah, adding another State to our list, and did several sites around the town. An Osprey on the nest at Kenney Reservoir and a Downy Woodpecker in the park adjacent to our motel were the only afternoon additions to the list. It’s pretty clear that small birds are at a premium – few migrants have arrived this far / high north yet. The search continues..!