Grouse Grand Slam

We’re back from our birding expedition to Colorado — a 10-day, nearly 2000-mile tour of the state focusing on the 7 species of grouse native to the state. The annotated itinerary:

Day 1 — We arrive in Colorado Springs and meet our carmates. It starts to snow.

Day 2 — We meet the rest of the group (16 people total, plus leader) and head off towards Elkhart, Kansas driving the last leg through a blizzard. In the evening we see the first of our target grouse, the lesser prairie chicken, visiting the lek site in preparation for the following morning.

Day 3 — The first day of our typical routine: up at 4:30 AM or something like that for a trip out to the lek site in the dark to watch the birds displaying before dawn. Lots of snow on the ground — it is very cold sitting in the car with open windows. We see 8 lesser prairie chickens displaying. We then head back to the motel for breakfast followed by a day of general birding.

Day 4 — A second try at the lesser prairie chickens, this time at a different site, followed by a drive to Wray, Colorado to see greater prairie chickens. Their lek interestingly is in the middle of an alfalfa field on a cattle ranch.

Day 5 — Before dawn we watch the greater prairie chickens display, about 35 birds total, at quite close distances. We head east through the Pawnee National Grasslands where after much effort we see McCown’s longspurs, a pair of chestnut-collared longspurs in breeding plumage, and a pair of mountain plovers. We spend the night at Greeley just east of the Rockies.

Day 6 — We travel through the Front Range to reach the small town of Walden in preparation to see greater sage grouse on their lek, and check out the lek site in the evening, the sage grouse cooperating with a partial display then.

Day 7 — Pica and I nearly oversleep and miss the 4:15 AM departure to see the sage grouse, but we get our warmest clothes on in record time and join the trek. We are thankful the grouse have no interest in hijacking our vehicles because they outnumber us and are certainly testosterone-laden enough to succeed at doing so. Off to Hayden via a lunchtime stop in Steamboat Springs, but we have little time for shopping, heading to the hills north of Hayden for a fruitless search for the dusky grouse. After this I sneak off to the local public library and look up some of the mammals we’ve seen already, including the thirteen-lined ground squirrel and the yellow-bellied marmot.

Day 8 — It snows overnight. With the help of a local guide we see a dusky grouse on his favorite spot in the hills, and a few sharp-tailed grouse on their lek spot, but they are mostly hunkering against the cold and we don’t see their display. Off to the mountain passes to look for white-tailed ptarmigan, but in two separate tries we fail to see any, the second time not reaching the site on account of too much snow.

Day 9 — Our third and final try at the white-tailed ptarmigan. We go to Loveland Pass, elevation 11,990 feet, and search the ridges on both sides. Two of our party ascend just high enough to spot a couple of birds, and we hurry up to their position despite the altitude. It is the literal high point of my birding career, looking at these white snow-footballs of birds at 12,280 feet in elevation.
We then travel east in preparation for our final grouse species, the Gunnison sage grouse.

Day 10 — Up at 4 AM for a 4:25 departure to the Gunnison sage grouse spot. Along with the lesser prairie chicken, the Gunnison sage grouse is the rarest species we see on the trip, and there is precisely one spot in the world from where this sage grouse can be viewed. Our preparations go well, and we are treated to a display that lasts well over an hour. After breakfast back in town, we start start wending our way back to Colorado Springs.

Day 11 — We fly back home, leaving the motel at 5 AM. The kitties are happy to see us upon our return!