Eastern Plains

Greater Prairie-Chicken Trail

Who Said Chickens Can’t Dance

Whooping and cackling like fiends, leaping into the air and puffing out their inflatable necks like frogs, the male Greater Prairie-Chickens put on a show each spring unrivaled in the animal kingdom. This is their stronghold in Colorado, the sandsage prairies of Yuma County, a landscape they share with meadowlarks, Cassin’s Sparrows and coyotes. These prairies are not all flat; in many places river bluffs tower a hundred feet above the river, and rich corridors of cottonwoods and willows line the major river corridors, attracting eastern wildlife like White-tailed Deer, Blue Jay, and occasionally cardinals, while Wild Turkeys stalk the edges of the woods and towns. Here where east blends with west, the landscape is always ready to serve up some kind of surprise.