This afternoon I sit wearing a T-shirt and watch and feel a warm breeze sweep through the open windows of our camper.  What a change even from this morning when we left in the dark dressed in long underwear and heavy jackets.  Dawn found us sitting in a creaky metal blind on the Cimarron National Grasslands.  The first sound, not our own, was of a Western Meadowlark prematurely greeting the day. 

In first light we could see shadowy movements on the prairie about one hundred meters north of the blind.  It was hard to focus in the dark, but soon it became clear that the scurrying dark forms were Lesser Prairie Chickens.  We could hear their bubbly calls before we could really see them.  Their chuckling is cute, but not as hauntingly beautiful as that of the Greater Prairie Chickens we found in the tall-grass prairie farther east.

Sunrise seemed to take forever, but as the morning brightened, we could more clearly see the birds.  Soon enough we confirmed their identity.  The displaying cocks raised their horn-like neck feathers and stiff tails.  Their yellow eyebrows glowed in the morning light.  Their pinkish neck patches and the different calls served to distinguish this bird from the similar Greater Prairie Chicken, which, besides, is not found in this part of Kansas.

An owl appeared briefly, flying in the distance above the prairie horizon.  Meadowlarks and horned larks landed from time to time on a nearby barbed wire fence.  The forms of winter dried grasses, sagebrush, and yucca became clear as the day brightened. 

We had brought the spotting scope to bear on the dancing chickens.   Cocks would begin to call, raise their horns, and inflate their necks.  Then they ran, often passing by other birds.  Rarely birds would meet head-on and jump in the air, their claws asserting dominance.  No females were on the lek.  They won’t appear for another couple of weeks.  Meanwhile, the males will establish their positions on the drumming ground.  A good position may warrant more attention from the ladies. 

Suddenly all the birds took to flight and scattered into the prairie.  Looking up we saw a female Northern Harrier flying rapidly toward the lek.  After it passed the cocks walked or flew back to their positions.  Later, a lovely male harrier scattered the birds and landed in the middle of the booming ground.  A sole cock remained and stood its ground scarcely three meters from the hawk.  A few minutes later most of the other cocks returned and resumed their dance somewhat hesitantly.  The harrier also appeared nervous, looking back and forth, as the dancers went about their business.  Eventually the harrier departed in search of less agitated prey. 

The Lesser Prairie Chicken is a bit smaller and paler than the Greater Prairie Chicken, but we couldn’t see this in the field.  The differences in color and shape of the neck skin patch were obvious, but otherwise except for the call, I don’t think we could tell the species apart. I suspect that except at the lek, most birders separate these species by geographic location.  Their ranges barely overlap.  A few serious students of prairie chickens may be able to otherwise distinguish the birds in the field, but probably most would need the bird in the hand to confirm the identification.

Our eyes and ears were in joy, but our feet were freezing.  We continued our watch as the sun rose.  The show began to wind down, but the protocol is to remain in the blind until an hour after sunrise.  We stayed for the duration.  A horned lark landed on the fence about 15 meters out and I set the scope on it.  We enjoyed close views of this bird.  Then we noticed that it was more than an hour after sunrise.  We got up, gathered our gear, closed the blind’s wooden windows, and walked back to the car.  I grabbed a paper towel, moistened it, and returned to the blind to clean the single glass window.  We saw a few cocks watching us from the grass as we finished up.  Another life-bird had made our lists. 

We birded the prairie for the rest of the morning finding two interesting Red-tailed Hawks, an immature light-morph Harlan’s, and a dark-morph Western.  We struggled to identify the former.  It’s paleness suggested a Krider’s, but the tail was gray and without a trace of red.  The gray and the broad dark tip of the tail suggested Harlan’s, but the upper wings sported various pale patches.  The field guides didn’t help, but last night I read an article in the most recent Birding magazine discussing these races.  Still, the bird confused me.  This afternoon in the motorhome I opened the magazine and found a photograph of a bird that looked just like the one we had seen.  It turns out that “juvenile” light-morph Harlan’s has broad light patches above.

The Western Red-tail was easier to identify.  It was strikingly different from the Eastern Red-tails that we are accustomed to seeing along the Atlantic seaboard.  We find it strange that these very different looking birds are all considered to be the same species!

Our last stop was back at the Elkhart sewage lagoons.  There we saw most of the same ducks we have seen there over the past few days, but the Ross’s Goose was gone and a splendid pair of American Avocets perched on the sloped sidewall of one of the tanks.  This was a good year-bird to close out our visit to Kansas.  We returned to camp for lunch.

We went to the library to check the weather in Colorado.  Our plan was to go there to find the Gunnison Sage Grouse, but the viewing station does not open until April 1.  Unfortunately the forecast does not look good for this date.  Snow, in fact, is forecast for Gunnison on the first and second of April.  We discussed options and concluded that we could not practically get this bird now.  Some year we will return to Colorado in April or May for a better chance at this bird.  There is a possibility that we will flush one in western Colorado later this summer, but that is not how one wants to get a grouse as a life-bird. 

We appear to have missed one of our target birds, but getting these grouse was a stretch on this expedition.  We are delighted to have seen both species of prairie chickens this spring.  We were able to schedule only one day for the Gunnison Sage Grouse, and that turned out not to be enough.  I knew the schedule was tight, but with the blind not opening up until April 1, and our wanting to be in the Southwest this April, I could only schedule one day for this bird.  We will head southwest into New Mexico early to avoid the weather.