24 April 2025: Grouse Lek Extravaganza with She Flew Birding Excursions.
Day 6: Larger sage-grouse lek, Colorado State Forest, Loveland Cross, to Wray
This morning we’re up and out very early to see the better sage-grouse lek, described right here with video. Afterward we journey virtually 400 miles: visiting sub-alpine habitat, crossing the Continental Divide at Loveland Cross, descending the Entrance Vary to Wray, Colorado close to the place the place Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas meet.
Tomorrow we’ll see prairie birds in Wray and at Pawnee Nationwide Grassland. I can hardly wait to see these Life Birds:
For better prairie chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) their booming hum is simply as essential because the dance strikes on the lek. Prairie hen leks might be discovered from japanese Colorado and Kansas to North Dakota and western Minnesota. We are going to go to one close to Wray. Sparky Stensaas recorded this one in Minnesota.
Longspurs: Thick-billed and Chestnut-collared
All longspurs have a protracted again toe (hallux) or “lengthy spur” that offers them their identify. Although lapland and Smith’s longspurs visited the Nice Plains over the winter, they’ve left for his or her arctic breeding grounds whereas two different longspur species have stayed to breed.
Thick-billed longspurs (Rhynchophanes mccownii) like brief grass prairie and carry out their courtship dance above it within the sky.
In its hanging aerial show, the male flutters upward to a top of about 10 m (32 ft) after which descends, teetering on outstretched wings held again to show the vivid white lining, with its white-and-black “T”-patterned tail fanned, and issuing a tinkling, warbling tune.
This chicken was referred to as McCown’s longspur.
The chestnut-collared longspur (Calcarius ornatus) is comparatively small. The colourful males carry out an undulating flight show with a melodic tune.
The male performs aerial tune shows: flies upward, circles and undulates and, after peak of ascent, descends whereas singing, with its tail unfold.
The lark bunting (Calamospiza melanocorys) is the State Fowl of Colorado and a plentiful sparrow of the Nice Plains.
For a lot of the yr male lark buntings match the panorama however in March and April they start to molt into hanging black and white plumage and slowly migrating north. Males arrive just a few days earlier than the females; every male establishes a territory in what seems to be a colony, and begins its aerial shows. — paraphrased from Birds of the World: Lark Bunting
