by Terry Lidral
The lesser prairie chicken has lived on the American Great Plains for thousands of years. It is well adapted for life in the arid shortgrass habitat of the southwestern prairies. These birds are perhaps best known for their elaborate courtship dances emulated in Blackfoot and Plains Cree Tribe ceremonial dances.
Check out a video of the courtship dance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPzDtTyzGIg
These smaller, paler relatives of the greater prairie chicken, live amongst low, scattered shrubs, mostly “shin oaks,” in the sandy areas of the southwestern Great Plains. They live on a diet of seeds and insects, the variety depending on the time of year. Often, during the winter months, these birds can be seen gleaning harvested fields. But they tend to shy away from sprawling farmland.
The elaborate courtship ritual of the male lesser prairie chicken is performed in a collective group in an area called a “lek.” The leks are consistently located in open ground, often on a rise, that offers good visibility. The dancing takes place early in the morning and consists of feather fluffing, strutting, pecking motions, booming gobbling sounds and tapping of the ground, all while moving forward and spinning.
The Blackfoot and Plains Cree Tribes perform ceremonial dances that mimic the courtship ritual of the male prairie chicken. It is performed in a celebration of the interconnection between the native people and the lesser prairie chicken which has existed for thousands of years.
Females arrive at the lek. A hen will mate with the male of her choice. She then builds a nest, a shallow depression under a shrub or grass clump lined with bits of grass and weeds. Usually, the lesser prairie hen lays 11 to 13 whitish buff speckled eggs in her nest that hatch in 22 to 24 days.
Lesser prairie chicks are covered with down upon hatching and leave the nest shortly thereafter. The hen tends her chicks but does not feed her brood. They forage for themselves from day one. At the end of the first and second weeks of their life, prairie chicks are taking short flights. Several weeks after their test flights, they are fully grown and independent.
The population of lesser prairie chickens on the American Great Plains before Europeans arrived is thought to be around a million birds. Today, because of expanding farmland encroaching on the shortgrass lands of the prairie, these same birds are said to number less than 30,000.
