Greater Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido)

Listen to Greater Prairie-Chicken booming from the Ohio Digital Resource Commons

Watch the Greater Prairie-Chicken displaying from the Macaulay Library

Description

A stocky, brown grouse, considered a large "chicken-like" bird. It is heavily barred with paler stripes above and grayish brown below. Has a short black tail. The male has yellow-orange air sacs inflated during courtship display, and long black feathers on sides of the neck that errect into "horns" during courtship; females have "horns" but they are shorter. Both male and female have obvious dark eye-stripe and pale throats. When in flight, the wings are rounded and the flight is swift with a series of rapidly beating wings.

Nebraska Habitat

Greater Prairie-Chickens require undisturbed prairie, preferring open sweeps of permanent high grass and minimal brush and trees. It uses vegetation 10-18 inches in height for roosting and nesting. Hens avoid nesting or rearing their broods within a quarter-mile of powerlines and within a third-mile of improved roads. In eastern Nebraska, the Greater Prairie-Chicken is heavily dependent on CRP grasslands.

Food

Leaves, seeds, buds, cultivated grains, fruits, and insects.

Behavior

Multiple males display for females at a group display site, called a lek. They perform striking courtship dances where they strut about and stamp their feet, with "horns" erect and yellow-orange sacs of skin inflated on the sides of the neck, meanwhile uttering a deep cooing call referred to as "booming" that may be heard a mile away. They leap and whirl in the air, and threaten each other by short runs with tail raised, head down, and horns erect.

Status in Nebraska

G4: globally apparently secure, S3-S4: state vulnerable to apparently secure, NBP Priority Species, NNLP Tier 1

Where to see it in Nebraska

The Sandhills are the heart of Greater Prairie-Chicken range. Numerous outfitters and nature centers now offer viewing trips during the spring lekking season. Once found throughout the tallgrass region, Greater Prairie-Chicken populations have been reduced by habitat fragmentation in eastern Nebraska.

Similar looking species

Lesser Prairie-Chicken has a pink neck patch, generally paler plumage, and more finely barred flanks. Lesser Prairie-Chicken is not currently found in Nebraska.

Fun Facts

Increasingly popular at powwows today, Native American dancers continue to mimic the prairie-chicken in the Prairie Chicken Dance, the origins of which are hard to pinpoint.
Greater Prairie-Chicken was formerly a species of the Eastern Tallgrass Prairie, but its range shifted westward to the Great Plains following European settlement and intensified farming.
A group of prairie-chickens is known as a "little house" or a "pack".