Howdy, friends.  Today’s bird is the greater prairie chicken or pinnated grouse.  This distinctive-looking bird used to be very common on the plains of North America.  Previously numbering well into the millions of individuals, relentless habitat loss pushed the prairie chicken to the brink of extinction in the 1930s.  Conservation efforts since then have raised its numbers somewhat, although it still appears to be pretty rare in the US, with Missouri hoping to use birds imported from Kentucky and Nebraska to increase local numbers to 3,000.  “Throughout North America, it is thought that their current population has declined severely, to approximately 500,000 individuals. In May 2000, the Canadian Species at Risk Act listed the greater prairie-chicken as extirpated in its Canadian range (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario).^[8]“

^{The word of the week this week is “mesopredator.”  This is a predator that occupies a spot in the middle of the food chain.  Mesopredators like skunks, racoons and opossums prey on prairie chicken eggs, of course, impact the bird population.  Interestingly, some bigger apex predators like bears, wolves and mountain lions would help control the mesopredator population and give the prairie chicken some breathing room, but we wiped most of those things out, certainly in areas where open plains have been converted to farmland.  This is an example of a trophic cascade, an indirect interaction in the food web of an ecosystem.  Without big critters to eat the medium critters, there are too many medium critters for the population of little critters to support.  The prairie chicken can also fall victim to nest parasitism from non-native pheasants.  Ring neck pheasant eggs have a shorter incubation period and will hatch first and the parents will abandon the remaining prairie chicken eggs to the elements.  Kind of a bummer, really.}  

^{On a lighter note, the prairie chicken performs its mating ritual, called “booming” in the “booming grounds.”  Booming grounds are an area with very short or no vegetation, where the chicken will hang out for up to two months hoping to attract a mate.  The ritual consists of the bird inflating the colorful air sacs on its throat and snapping its blunt tail.  Prairie chickens will defend their chosen booming ground from rivals, and do not migrate, so they come back to the same pickup spot year after year.}  

^{Be sure to inflate your neck pouch to establish dominance.  I know its rough out there, PT, but we’ve got this.}  

Links: https://tinyurl.com/yv6z6pdf, https://tinyurl.com/34fh7uwk, https://tinyurl.com/yxu8b7dd