Hi, Bone!
If you really want to photograph one badly - well, I'll take you out after them next spring (they're finished displaying for the year now).
Only catch is, it requires alot of "want to". The birds fly into the lek in the late evening, just after darkness sets in - usually about 8:15pm. They dance and display (and sometimes fight) for about an hour. Then they just sleep. They roost right there on the ground in the lek, each in it's position.
In the morning, they start to dance again at about 4:30am. It gets light enough to get good images by around 5:45 if it's clear. They dance and display until anywhere from 7 to 8. Then they fly away and leave the lek until evening comes once again.
So, you see, if you tried to approach the lek in the morning, you'd scare the grouse away - or at the least disturb them. So what I did to be in position at the right time is to go in the evening before and set up a pup-tent. Look for dancing Sage Grouse tracks in the dirt to see where the most advantageous spot for the tent is. Then set it up and you get all your stuff set up the way you want it in the tent. Then get inside the tent and close it up by 8pm - before the grouse start coming in. Then you sleep there all night, amongst the grouse!
You'll want to have a slit cut in the side of the tent so that you can stick your lens thru. You really want the camera & lens to be on a tripod for this. Handholding the camera for this setup would be a disaster, and probably result in the birds being spooked away.
When it starts to get light, you'll already be in place - right in the middle of a bunch of dancing grouse in their lek! If you positioned the tent correctly, you should have a dancing grouse within very close range. If you're quiet and careful, you can photograph the whole time the grouse are there, without scaring them off. You may see them fight. You may see them copulate. That's the great thing about being in a "blind" - you never know what you'll get to see!
Obviously, it's a rather uncomfortable endeavor - who wants to sleep out all night by themselves in a cramped old army pup-tent? Who wants to pack all the gear in to the lek? But if you're willing to do the work and put up with the discomfort, the images you can capture will be more than worth it.
Here's another pic of a grouse, along with one of the pup-tent setup.
