A group of vehicles are gathered on a dirt road, many miles from any highway. It is barely light, well before dawn, not a reasonable time to be birdwatching, unless we were looking for owls. What might we be doing at such an ungodly hour? We are here to peer at sex.

The Sage Grouse are strutting their stuff at their lek. Eight of them are claiming defense of a tiny territory each, ten feet across, and showing off just how studly they are. At the unseen boundaries, a literal line in the sand, battles emerge. Wings flap, figurative kicks of sand in the face are made. But when they’re displaying, the physical lust is unmistakable. A corona of dark and pointed tail feathers stands erect, like on those cartoon cutouts of Thanksgiving turkeys. Several erect rings of lesser tail feathers (the "coverts" in birder-speak) form smaller bright rings on the rear of the bird, formed of white tips on dark feather shafts. The yellow eye comb is engorged. The long, thin feathers on the back of the neck are sticking straight out. The wings are held just the way they would be if you were wearing suspenders and stuck your thumbs smartly under them, and then held your elbows out. The most obscene feature is the yellow scrotum-like bulges on the chest, ringed with a thick white ruff, that flops and sways until the bird puffs them up. The sacks enlarge, the bird heaves upwards, and the bird makes a sound that, frankly, disappoints me: POP-POP. For all this effort you’d expect something grander, more masculine. It sounds like when you stick a wet thumb in a pop bottle and pluck it out, but more extended.

POP-POP, the birds are calling. It is the singles scene of the high desert sage. These birds are in full-body sexual excitement. Some female grouse is going to see me, they say, and know that I’ve got the best patch of this desert because I’ve been strutting the strongest and I’ve fended off all these other lesser grouses for the top spot. I’ll be your man. See what great genes I have? Mate with me baby. This is a scene we’ve all experienced and, hopefully, outgrown.

Then daylight overtakes the landscape. The birds go flaccid. What were we thinking? This looks really stupid! The birds appear to shrink in embarassment, and the landscape is quiet.