Birding for Life

I woke up on March 21 to find a text message from my birding pal Derek.  Two spots were available on the Field Guides grouse tour in April; would I like to go?  Well, yes, of course, I would like to go!  I know several people who have done the “chicken run” on their own, but I had no desire to find the best locations, make the arrangements, and then drive 2,500 miles getting to all the leks.  I had not planned to take another birding trip so soon after China, but this was too good to pass up.  I responded “Yes!” to Derek and a couple of hours later we were both officially signed up for the trip.

I had never been to Colorado and I was looking forward to seeing rugged landscapes like this.

The focus of the trip would be viewing Greater and Lesser Prairie-Chickens and three additional species of grouse on their leks.  You might be wondering “What’s a lek?”  While a dictionary defines a lek simply as a “communal area in which two or more males of a species perform courtship displays,” they are far more.  Leks are hotbeds of social activity excitingly described in the Audubon article, What the Heck Is a Lek? The Quirkiest Mating Party on Earth.  In between the leks, we would search for several other uncommon species of birds that are highly-sought by birders.  Additionally, this trip usually provides interesting sightings of mammals.

Here’s a preview of the Greater Prairie-Chickens that we would soon be watching on a lek at a cattle ranch in Colorado.

Derek and I wanted to stay a couple of extra days in Colorado after the tour to look for any species that we might have missed or just get in a little more birding.  We spent two hours on the phone searching for flights from Baltimore for Derek and compatible flights from Greensboro for me.  We couldn’t seem to make it work, so we decided that I would just drive up to Baltimore and we’d fly to Denver together from there.

A Bald Eagle, our national bird, in our nation’s capital

I arrived in Maryland a day early, supposedly to take it easy and rest for the big trip.  But, of course, our birding obsessions would not allow any downtime.  I’m currently trying to get birds in all of the lower 48 states.  Derek assured me that the District of Columbia counts as a state-level entity, so we spent our first day there.  We had fun despite the intermittent rain and I got 43 species, not bad considering that the expected waterfowl were absent.  Derek even got two new D.C. birds, Red-breasted Nuthatch and Vesper Sparrow.

The next morning, April 13, we caught an early flight to Denver and rented a car so that we could do a little birding before officially starting the tour later that afternoon.  We checked out nearby Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR where we had a nice transition to Western birds.  It was fun seeing Black-billed Magpie, Say’s Phoebe, and Western Meadowlark alongside many birds that we also see in the East like American Avocets.  We were also excited to see the first of three prairie dog species that we would encounter during the trip.

I had a close view of a Red-tailed Hawk on our first afternoon in Colorado. They were very common and we would see too many to count during the coming days.

At 2:30 PM, we met the other eleven participants and our trip leaders, Cory Gregory and Doug Gochfeld. We piled into the two fifteen-passenger vans that would be home for the next 10 days and after quick introductions we were on our way towards Kansas.  I was happy that Cory was one of the leaders as I had met him in Alaska (Alaska 2015: “The Pit Stop is Cancelled”) and knew that he was a great guy in addition to an expert birder.  On our way to Pueblo, Colorado, where we spent the first night, we stopped to look for Western Screech-Owl in a driving rain that eventually turned to snow.  We joked about the weather throughout the trip, saying that we experienced everything except a tornado.  Sadly, we did not have any luck with the Screech-Owl; this was one of the few misses of the trip.

Curve-billed Thrasher in the early morning fog. Photo by Derek Hudgins.

On the first full day of the trip, we enjoyed many stops for birding as we continued to head east towards Kansas.  Our first stop was magical, almost spiritual, as we listened to a Curve-billed Thrasher singing in the early morning light.  No other vehicles were on our section of the gravel road and we heard no sounds of civilization; it was just us and the birds.

As the fog dissipated, we continued down the road, getting our first of many excellent views of Pronghorn, an iconic symbol of the West.  Suddenly Derek called out a bird that had been missed.  We backed up and saw a singing Scaled Quail on a cholla cactus on the side of the road.  In this awesome encounter, the bird stayed in that spot for a while, then hopped down, ran across the road, and perched up on a barbed-wire fence where he continued to sing.  We were all thrilled with close looks at this gorgeous bird, which was later voted one of the group favorites for the trip.

Scaled Quail. Can you see why he’s sometimes called “cotton top”?

Later that day, we picked up more classic Western species like Yellow-headed Blackbird, Clark’s Grebe, and Lewis’s Woodpecker.  The best part of the afternoon was birding at Neenoshe Reservoir, where we met Colorado birding legend Tony Leukering and Derek got life bird #1,000 – Long-billed Curlew.

Derek’s photo of his 1,000th life bird, Long-billed Curlew at Neenoshe Reservoir.

The following day, April 15, we visited our first lek, on a Nature Conservancy property in Kansas, to observe Lesser Prairie-Chickens.  We followed the usual protocol for lek viewing and arrived at the blind well before dawn.  We settled into our places on the bench in the metal blind and sat as quietly as possible for the next few hours.  We heard the chickens in the darkness before we saw them.  With the rising sun, silhouettes became visible.  Finally, we saw the entire drama play out before our eyes as the prairie-chickens danced the same dances and observed the same mating rituals as they have for thousands of years.

Female Lesser Prairie-Chickens

Sadly, the Lesser Prairie-Chicken has suffered huge population declines since the 1800’s.  The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) lists the species as “vulnerable” due to its restricted and patchy range.  In 2014, it was listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, but that ruling was overturned the following year.  Legal battles to protect the Lesser Prairie-Chicken have continued since with a lawsuit to make a decision on listing the species as endangered or threatened likely to be filed soon.  Here is the most current information that I could find, which includes both a biological and legal history.  Regardless of legal status, the prairie-chickens are clearly losing ground due to habitat loss with global warming looming as another threat to their survival.  Cory mused that the Lesser Prairie-Chicken is the most likely bird in the lower 48 states to go extinct in our lifetimes.

Male Lesser Prairie-Chicken displaying on the lek. Photo by Derek Hudgins.

After viewing the Lesser Prairie-Chickens, we turned back West and birded along the way to Wray, Colorado, with a quick stop in Nebraska, which gave one participant her last state to be visited.  After checking into our hotel, we headed over to the Bledsoe Cattle Ranch for a warm welcome from Bob Bledsoe, a partner in the family-run business.  The ranch has won many awards, but we were also impressed by the Bledsoe’s good stewardship of the land which hosts about 100 Greater Prairie-Chicken leks on its 75,000 acres according to Bob’s estimate. Bob was a good representative for the fascinating Bledsoe family; we enjoyed Bob’s stories and our Q&A session.

On April 16, we arose in the wee hours again, this time to see Greater Prairie-Chickens on the Bledsoe ranch.  The routine was similar, arriving before dawn, but this time we watched the birds from the vans and two pick-up trucks.  Derek and I were lucky to get one truck to ourselves, a great help in getting photos.  As with the Lesser Prairie-Chickens, the birds displayed mere feet from us as we quietly watched.

Male Greater Prairie-Chickens challenge each other on the lek.

Greater Prairie-Chickens are very similar to Lesser Prairie-Chickens, but slightly larger.  The most noticeable difference is that the gular air sac on the side of the neck is orange to yellow during the breeding season while the air sac of the male Lesser Prairie-Chicken is red.  Although numbers of Greater Prairie-Chickens have declined, they have a wider range and larger, more secure population than Lesser Prairie-Chickens.

A male Greater Prairie-Chicken booming on the lek.

This charismatic species was my favorite member of the grouse family.  Not only were they beautiful and interesting birds, but the males put on the best vocal show with their booming, cackling, and whooping while dancing and strutting.  Greater Prairie-Chickens are so well-known for their booming sounds that their leks are often referred to as “booming grounds.”

Male Greater Prairie-Chickens step up their game as they fight for the best territories on the lek. Photo by Derek Hudgins.

I couldn’t help but wonder how the bizarre lek mating system evolved.  Darwin’s theory of natural selection, commonly referred to as survival of the fittest, explains much about evolution, but it can’t explain how non-adaptive characteristics arise.  Features such as the peacock’s long tail actually harm survival by making it difficult to flee from predators.  Darwin realized this and developed his second theory, sexual selection, to explain the emergence of traits which do not aid and may even hinder survival, but give one individual an advantage over other individuals of the same species in obtaining mates.  Darwin suggested two mechanisms of sexual selection: mate choice and competition for mates.  Competition for mates (especially among males) is obvious and generally accepted by scientists as a function of sexual selection.  But mate selection is more complicated.  In his popular book, The Evolution of Beauty, Richard Prum passionately argues that it’s the female’s innate sense of beauty that explains mate choice, but other scientists disagree.  Many questions remain and grouse are frequently studied in ongoing research on sexual selection.  During the ten days of the grouse tour, we would simply thrill in the displays of the males strutting their stuff and the discerning females making their choices.

Two female Lesser Prairie-Chickens evaluate their choices. Photo by Derek Hudgins.

We saw a few females at both prairie-chicken leks and several others in our group observed mating.  They reported that all the females choose the same male.  This is typical; the dominant couple of males in a given lek will likely mate with about 90% of the females.  The females then leave to build a nest, incubate their eggs, and raise the chicks on their own without any help from the male.

Great Horned Owl. Photo by Derek.

We continued to enjoy sightings of many other species as we drove back to Denver.  The group liked this Great Horned Owl on her nest that we stopped to observe on our way out of the Bledsoe ranch.  Highlights later that day were Mountain Plovers, Burrowing Owls, and a large flock of 150 McCown’s Longspurs at Pawnee National Grassland.  The longspurs were more distant than we would have liked, but, along with the Mountain Plovers, they were life birds for several in our group.

Next on this wonderful trip – grouse leks!  Stay tuned for more Colorado grouse tour adventures.

Driving through Pawnee National Grassland. Photo by Derek Hudgins.