A Field Guide To Sage-Grouse Habitat

Learn how to identify high-quality sage grouse habitat in the western United States.

Chasing Greater Sage-grouse is a dream hunt for many uplanders. For most, it’s an epochal experience planned years in advance. But increasing your odds of hunting sage-grouse requires advanced research. Why squander away a potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by being underprepared?

Listen to more articles on Apple | Google | Spotify | Audible

One of the first research questions a hopeful hunter usually asks is, “What does sage-grouse habitat look like?” It’s a great question because sage-grouse use different parts of a landscape throughout the year. Where birds are found in the spring may not hold any birds in the fall. Knowing what they do and when they do it is key to locating sage-grouse during hunting season.

Greater Sage-grouse Are Sagebrush Obligates

Sage-grouse need large, connected, and mostly treeless swaths of sagebrush to survive. Without this, sage-grouse cease to exist. It’s that simple. Sage-grouse are what scientists and biologists call a sagebrush obligate species. You can’t have sage-grouse without sage.

Sage-grouse occupy western sagebrush (Artemisia sp.) prairies of California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and into the province of Saskatchewan. Although sage-grouse still live in all these places, their populations have shrunk. The largest core populations still thrive in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon. Uncoincidentally, these are the same states with the most intact and healthy sagebrush landscapes.

The landscapes spanning the Greater Sage-grouse’s range can look very different, but they are very similar at their core. The southernmost population of sage-grouse resides near Alton, Utah. These birds are backdropped by Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument’s orange and red sandstone cliffs. Along the Montana and Saskatchewan border, the sky can be seen from horizon to horizon, spilling over rolling waves of sage-covered hillsides. Despite some scenic differences, no matter where you go in sage-grouse range, you’ll find one essential core component: sagebrush, and lots of it. 

Sage-grouse Live A Segmented Life

To know sage-grouse habitat, you need to know their annual life cycle. Breeding, nesting, early brood-rearing, late brood-rearing, fall, and winter are sage-grouse annual life segments. Each one requires a slightly different habitat type in a different part of their range each year. 

Sage-grouse follow an annual migration. They carefully seek food, shelter, water, and cover in the sagebrush sea to meet their needs at that moment in their life cycle. Each piece of habitat leads them to the next one until they’ve completed an annual migration across a landscape.

Breeding Sage-grouse Habitat

Sage-grouse are known as a “lekking” species, meaning they gather communally each year from March through May at traditional breeding sites called leks. There, males court females via strutting. Male grouse stand tall with erect tail feathers, popping yellow air sacs in their chest to an audience of hens gathered around. Strutting sage-grouse is truly something to behold, an experience I wish all of humanity could witness.

For the males, lekking is all about being seen. In order to display for an audience, a male sage-grouse’s stage needs to be visually unobstructed. To meet this need, lek sites are open spaces amongst surrounding sagebrush cover. Ridgetops, grassy openings, burned sites, salt licks, and sometimes human-altered areas like airstrips, gravel pits, and infrequently cultivated fields are used as lekking grounds. Birds gather just before sun up and leave for the surrounding sagebrush cover once the sun fully rises.

Sage-grouse Nesting Habitat

During May and June, after breeding at a lek, hens leave in search of a suitable nest site. Nest selection occurs in the sagebrush surrounding leks and can be from one mile to a few miles away. Nesting habitat is comprised of large sagebrush plants with good grass and forb (flowering plant) understories. These plants conceal nests both vertically and horizontally from ground and air predators. 

Hens build ground nests in a bowl-like shape. Each nest is made of soil, feathers, and vegetation, and is usually under a large, umbrella-shaped sagebrush plant. Successful nest sites range from five percent to 40 percent sagebrush cover in combination with five percent to 35 percent grass and forb cover. Eggs incubate in the nest for 25 to 29 days, with four to 11 eggs per clutch.

Sage-grouse Brood Rearing Habitat

Early (June-July)

Brood-rearing habitat can be broken into two categories: early and late. Chicks are born equipped and ready to immediately begin a circuitous journey in search of food and water with their mother. Newly hatched broods usually leave the nest site within a day.

For young chicks to make it to adulthood, they need to find habitat with an abundant and diverse array of insects and forbs. Hens often lead their young to areas where they themselves were reared as chicks. Early brood rearing takes place in the adjacent uplands near the nest site, with a sagebrush canopy of 10 percent to 25 percent and a grass and forb understory of 10 percent to 20 percent.

Late (August-September)

As the temperature climbs and summer progresses, hens continue to lead their young across the landscape in search of a very specific habitat type: meadows with succulent grasses and forbs. In the sage-grouse conservation world, these particular habitat types are called mesic or wet meadows. 

Mesic meadows can be found around springs, seeps, streams, drainages, and irrigated pastures. Meadows provide broods (and adults) with high-nutrient forage as the surrounding upland habitat dries and cures. Meadows also provide higher densities of insects to feed on than the surrounding uplands. During the latter part of summer, mesic meadows are critical for grouse survival. It’s a habitat type conservationists are trying to protect and restore across their range.

List of Forbs used as Food by Sage Grouse

Fall Sage-grouse Habitat

From September through November, as the days grow shorter and fall air sets in, chicks lucky enough to still be alive disperse. Area birds start forming mixed flocks in preparation for colder days and nights and winter migration. 

Although summer habitats continue to be used into the fall, birds will also start to move into the surrounding higher benches and ridges to forage on any remaining succulent forbs. At this time, sagebrush leaves become an increasingly common part of their diet. As winter approaches, flocks start to move in the direction of their winter habitat. 

Winter Sage-grouse Habitat 

Sage-grouse reside in their winter habitat from November to March. Depending on the landscape, winter habitat may be as close as a few miles from the bird’s summer and fall habitats. It can also be up to 150 miles away, as documented along Montana and Canada’s border. 

The absolute critical component of winter habitat is mature, robust sagebrush rising above the snow throughout the winter months. Sage grouse exclusively rely on sagebrush for food while wintering; nearly 100 percent of their diet consists of sagebrush leaves during this time. Maintaining and protecting older-age sagebrush in sage grouse winter range is a key component for managing sustainable populations. 

Grouse will use wind-swept ridges, low draws, or anywhere else sagebrush is exposed in the winter. The birds also continue to roost high on ridges as they do throughout the year. However, when wind and temperatures become extremely cold, they may seek cover in thick brush and low-lying areas.

As with nesting and lekking habitats, sage-grouse have a high fidelity for returning to the same general wintering grounds each year. However, they do move depending on snow depths and access to sagebrush. Deeper snow will cause available sagebrush to become increasingly disjunct, and birds will move around looking for available food. This is why the birds must have large, intact sagebrush landscapes to seek shelter and food under varying snow depths and climatic conditions.

As days become longer again and spring rolls around, birds migrate back into their breeding areas. The entire seasonal journey replays itself again.