Lesser Prairie-Chicken

Lesser Prairie-Chicken, male displaying

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Lesser Prairie-Chicken, male

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1. Description
2. Sound
3. Range
4. Behavior
5. Reproduction
6. Conservation Status
7. Other Names

A smaller, paler version of the Greater Prairie-Chicken, the Lesser Prairie-Chicken is now found only in restricted areas of five states in the southern Great Plains. It inhabits open rangeland dominated by shinnery oak or sand sagebrush.

Description

• Size: 38-41 cm (15-16 in)
• Weight: 628-813 g (22.17-28.7 ounces)

• Medium to large chicken-like bird.
• Striped brown and white.
• Short, rounded tail.
• Wings rounded in flight.

Sex Differences

Sexes similar, male has long tufts of feathers and reddish sacs on the sides of its neck, and a solidly colored, not barred tail.

Immature

Similar to adult.

Sound

Displaying male makes bubbling "wak, wulluh, wulluh."

Range

Range Map

© 2004 Cornell Lab of Ornithology

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Summer Range

Resident to rangeland in Southwestern Kansas, the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, southeastern Colorado, and northeastern New Mexico.

Behavior

Courtship

Multiple males display at group display site, known as a lek.

Reproduction

Condition at Hatching

Downy and able to follow mother.

Conservation Status

Large population declines since 1800s have resulted primarily as the result of droughts, conversion of rangeland to cropland, excessive grazing by livestock, chemical control of sand sagebrush and shinnery oak on rangelands, and perhaps hunting when populations were low. Hunting is still premitted in Kansas and Texas.

Other Names

Tétras pâle (French)

Sources used to construct this page:

Giesen, K. M. 1998. Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus). In The Birds of North America, No. 364 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.