A 
This strange and
unfamiliar sound is found emanating from a group of male prairie chicken
males during their courtship rituals. This sound, which was once very common
throughout the
Midwest, is now declining as the prairie chicken’s habitat is being lost.
The
greater prairie chicken is an upland, grassland-nesting bird found largely in the
southern regions of
Kansas
which is also the home of the lesser prairie chicken. They are related to the
sharp-tailed grouse. The lesser greater prairie chicken inhabits the grasslands of
south western Kansas
while the greater prairie chicken prefers the central and eastern tallgrass prairies.
The birds are similar in appearance, with the most notable difference being
the color of the male’s vocal sacs. The greater male chickens have a
distinctive reddish/orange colored sac while the greater and are slightly larger
in size.
In the spring the prairie chickens assemble before dawn each morning
and again in the late afternoon at breeding sites called booming grounds or
leks. The males arrive first to stake out his territory, which consists of a
small dancing area, that he vigorously defends against other male
competitors. literally drum the ground, the birds cock forward, erecting special feathers
on the head that look like horns. They draw air into vocal sacs the size of
small oranges and produce strange sounds known as "booming. " This
sound can be heard as far as a mile on a early calm morning.
The birds are timid
and will
flush from the lek at the sight of an approaching person so a blind
must be used to observe the birds at a close range.
It’s ideal to enter
the blind in the dark before the males fly into the lek and stay until after
the birds left the area to feed in late morning.
Their elaborate
courtship rituals have made them very popular with
