Article: IN MAY, SAGE GROUSE'S STRUT IS IN FULL SWING.(Local)

Byline: Gary Gerhardt Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Time's running out if you intend to view one of the greatest mating rituals in the animal kingdom - the erotic strut of the sage grouse.

The largest of Colorado's six grouse species - blue, sharp-tailed, ptarmigan, and greater and lesser prairie chicken are the others - the sage grouse return every year to the same bare patches of ground called leks, from the Scandinavian word leka, meaning ``to play.''

Shortly after dawn, all the males begin their strut, puffing out magnificant downy-white breast and neck feathers and inflating two greenish-yellow sacs that look like small balloons pushing ...

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