BirdNote®: Sage Grouse Lek and Grasslands
Air Date: April 12, 2019
Springtime brings spectacular courtship dances by the male Greater Sage Grouse, which sings a remarkable song as it puffs up its two bulbous air sacs and moves its head back and forth in order to attract a mate. BirdNote’s Michael Stein reports on the bird’s curious practice called leks, and how Sage Hens are threatened by agricultural and energy development.
Transcript
BIRDNOTE THEME
CURWOOD: The Fish and Wildlife report concluded that pesticides can multiply the risks for species in decline. The Greater Sage Grouse is not listed as endangered but there’s just a fraction of them remaining in the wild as compared to a century ago. And as Bird Note’s Michael Stein reports, the Greater Sage Grouse is perhaps most well-known for its unique mating call and dance.
STEIN: Dawn breaks across the sagebrush country of the West on a brisk March morning.
SAGE-GROUSE MALES PERFORMING
Already, fifteen male Greater Sage-Grouse are strutting on their traditional display area, a sparsely vegetated arena amid the sage.
SAGE-GROUSE MALES PERFORMING
As the sun rises, meadowlarks begin to sing.
WESTERN MEADOWLARK SONG
And we can now see the Sage-Grouse clearly. The enormous males are over two feet long, and weigh six pounds. They stand bolt upright, their long tails fanned like a turkey’s tail, the dark backs and bellies contrasting sharply with their white breasts. When they display, the sage-grouse simultaneously scrape their wings back and forth against their flanks, expel air from twin, fleshy chest-sacs the size of tennis balls, and call softly. The resulting sound combines swishing, popping, and cooing.
SOUNDS OF SAGE-GROUSE MALES PERFORMING ON LEK
At the display area, known as a lek, the male Sage-Grouse perform for mating rights with the smaller females looking on.
SOUNDS OF SAGE-GROUSE MALES PERFORMING ON LEK
As lands formerly covered in sage are converted to agriculture, so goes the fate of the magnificent Sage-Grouse. In some areas, the grouse have less than ten percent of their historical range.
SOUNDS OF SAGE-GROUSE MALES PERFORMING ON LEK
I’m Michael Stein.
CURWOOD: For photos of the Greater Sage Grouse strut on over to our website, LOE.ORG.
Written by Bob Sundstrom Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Display sounds of the Greater Sage-Grouse recorded by G.A. Keller; call of the Western Meadowlark recorded by W.R. Fish Producer: John Kessler Executive Producer: Chris Peterson © 2013 Tune In to Nature.org March 2013 Narrator: Michael Stein
