24 April 2025: Grouse Lek Extravaganza with She Flew Birding Tours.
Day 6: Greater sage-grouse lek, Colorado State Forest, Loveland Pass, to Wray

This morning we are up and out very early to see the greater sage-grouse lek, described here with video. Afterward we travel almost 400 miles: visiting sub-alpine habitat, crossing the Continental Divide at Loveland Pass, descending the Front Range to Wray, Colorado near the place where Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas meet.

Tomorrow we’ll see prairie birds in Wray and at Pawnee National Grassland. I can hardly wait to see these Life Birds:

For greater prairie chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) their booming hum is just as important as the dance moves on the lek. Prairie chicken leks can be found from eastern Colorado and Kansas to North Dakota and western Minnesota. We will visit one near Wray. Sparky Stensaas recorded this one in Minnesota.

Longspurs: Thick-billed and Chestnut-collared

All longspurs have a long back toe (hallux) or “long spur” that gives them their name. Though lapland and Smith’s longspurs visited the Great Plains over the winter, they have left for their arctic breeding grounds while two other longspur species have stayed to breed.

Thick-billed longspurs (Rhynchophanes mccownii) like short grass prairie and perform their courtship dance above it in the sky.

In its striking aerial display, the male flutters upward to a height of about 10 m (32 ft) and then descends, teetering on outstretched wings held back to display the vivid white lining, with its white-and-black “T”-patterned tail fanned, and issuing a tinkling, warbling song.

— Birds of the World: Thick-billed longspur

This bird used to be called McCown’s longspur.

The chestnut-collared longspur (Calcarius ornatus) is relatively small. The colorful males perform an undulating flight display with a melodic song.

The male performs aerial song displays: flies upward, circles and undulates and, after peak of ascent, descends while singing, with its tail spread.

— Birds of the World: Chestnut-collared longspur

The lark bunting (Calamospiza melanocorys) is the State Bird of Colorado and a plentiful sparrow of the Great Plains.

For most of the year male lark buntings match the landscape but in March and April they begin to molt into striking black and white plumage and slowly migrating north. Males arrive a few days before the females; each male establishes a territory in what appears to be a colony, and begins its aerial displays. — paraphrased from Birds of the World: Lark Bunting