Greater Prairie Chicken Adventure

Greater Prairie Chicken in Wray, Colorado

Even before first light began to creep across the frost-bitten prairie, hysterical cackling and whistling reached our ears. Gradually we could make out the silhoutte of the bird creating those weird sounds. By dawn, the dancing had already begun: foot stomping, circling in place, approaching the rival and bowing or jumping up above him, all while singing the ancient, off-key song of his ancestors and hoping that some female would find his noisy gyrations attractive.

Welcome to the Greater Prairie Chicken tours in Wray, Colorado. For thirty years, birders, nature-lovers and others looking for an off-beat adventure have traveled to empty, flat, windswept Yuma County in northeastern Colorado, set their alarms in the one local motel for 3:45 a.m., loaded onto a school bus at 4:50 a.m., bounced across poorly maintained washboard ranch roads, scrambled into a metal trailer equipped with wooden benches seating 30, and then waited in the cold and dark to hear those first notes of the mating songs of the male Greater Praire Chickens.

On the crisp (22 degrees F) morning in April 2025 that we took the tour, the trailer windows were opened to the west at 5:30 a.m. Then the participants silently watched the lek (Swedish word for playground) for the 12 male Prairie Chickens who dance there for six weeks every spring. Yes, unless humans pave over it or build track homes on the lek, the same male chickens return to the same lek each day of the mating season, and each year of their lives. About 10 minutes after we started watching the dancing grounds, the males began to face off against each other and dance like rival gangs in West Side Story, hoping the hens would show up and think they were cool.

On our morning, 13 males (no idea where the extra guy came from) were dancing and noise-making before a completely silent (other than shutter clicks) group of 20 spectators watching from the trailer. We'd been warned the night before at the orientation that the hens might not show up because they could be protecting their clutch of eggs from the recent windy, cold weather rather than seeking out more male attention. But the wind forgot to blow that morning, and 14 hens descended on the lek, creating complete mayhem among the males. The males raised and lowered their pinnae feathers (that resemble rabbit ears), inflated and deflated their orange air sacs, leapt into the air and threatened to strike each other with feet, wings or beaks. It was a dazzling show.

Male (left) and female (right) Greater Prairie Chicken

Watching Greater Prairie Chickens in 2025 is a privilege almost denied us by decades of over-hunting, habitat loss, and loss of genetic variations because of declining population. But Colorado has done a good job protecting and increasing the numbers in that state. According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife:

Once numbered in the millions, between 1973 and 1993, Colorado’s greater prairie-chickens were listed by the state as an endangered species. In 1993, the birds were delisted to threatened and in 1998 they were delisted to a special concern/non-game status. Through CPW recovery efforts, which included cooperative habitat projects with eastern Colorado landowners, greater prairie-chicken numbers have grown from a low of 600 birds in 1973 to a healthy population [of over 10,000 in recent surveys].

Sadly, Texas has not made the same kind of effort with the smaller and paler Lesser Prairie Chickens that once healthily populated the Texas Panhandle area. So traveling to see the Greater Prairie Chicken show in Colorado is the best way to really get to know these grassland grouse-like birds.

Its hard to remember that all of the dancing and cackling that we observed on our tour has an important purpose--repopulating this threatened species.

Hens will visit leks again through April and into the first part of May before dispersing into the prairie and developing a nest over the course of a couple weeks. Like most ground-laying birds, they can have a large clutch size. Greater prairie chickens on average lay a clutch of 12 or 13 eggs and after a 23-26 day incubation period, all of the eggs hatch at one time.

The chicks can be fathered by more than one male. The hen can only lay one egg per day and she doesn't incubate the eggs until she has produced all the eggs she is going to lay. So the first egg laid may just sit there in the nest for weeks while the hen flies off and mates some more. She might cover the bowl-shaped nest with vegetation while she is gone. But finally she settles on the nest for about three weeks, incubates the eggs and hatches her brood. The chicks can walk around and feed with mom within one day. Within two weeks, the chicks are able to weakly fly. At three to four months old, the chicks are independent.

All of this information about the Greater Prairie Chicken was shared by a wildlife biologist with Colorado Parks and Wildlife department in the excellent orientation at the Wray Museum the night before our tour. The museum, the historical society, the chamber of commerce, and the ranching association all team up to make the tours a success. The enthusiasm of the townspeople of Wray for the birding activities spilled over at the orientation, during the tour and at a warm, welcome pancake breakfast after we viewed the birds. Everyone in Wray seemed happy that birders from Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, Florida and Texas had traveled to their town to appreciate their famous wildlife.

So was it worth it to drive more than six hours, stay one very short night, get up in the dark, pull on long underwear, gloves, parkas and hats, sit in the cold in a trailer with 20 strangers to watch a bird howl and stomp his feet like a three-year-old throwing a tantrum on the playground? Even my SOB (spouse of birder) husband, Rohn, said "yes" enthusiastically. In fact, he wants to know when we are going to do it again!

Full dance solo (sound on)