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Article: IN MAY, SAGE GROUSE'S STRUT IS IN FULL SWING.(Local)
- Article from:
- Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
- Article date:
- April 23, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Rocky Mountain News. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Dialog LLC by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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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 ...