Family: Phasianidae, Pheasants and Grouse view all from this family
Description Male, 26-30" (66-76 cm); female, 22-23" (56-58 cm). Both sexes mottled gray-brown above with black belly. Male has long pointed tail, black throat, white breast, with elongated neck plumes flanking breast. Female's head, back, and breast uniformly barred. Displaying male fans tail and tilts it forward; inflates pair of naked yellowish-green air sacs in neck and breast.
Habitat Open country and sagebrush plains.
Nesting 6-9 olive-green eggs, lightly spotted with brown, in a well-concealed grass-lined depression.
Range Resident from southern Alberta and Saskatchewan south to eastern California, Nevada, Colorado, and South Dakota.
Voice When flushed, a chicken-like cackling call. Males make bubbling sound during courtship.
Discussion The Greater Sage-Grouse is well named, for it is quite dependent on sagebrush. In the fall and winter the leathery leaves of sagebrush are one of its only foods, and during the rest of the year sagebrush provides it with cover. Each spring the males gather on a traditional display ground, called a lek, to court the females. Once a female has mated, she goes off and raises her family by herself. The smaller Gunnison Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus minimus), found in sagebrush habitats in western Colorado, has recently been recognized as a separate species.
