Fall and winter movements and habitat use of lesser prairie chickens

Lesser prairie chickens (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) accepted man-made sites for lekking in west Texas. More gobbling males used leks situated on natural sites, herbicide treatment plots, oil pads, and reverted cropland than leks situated near livestock watering tanks and on cultivated cropland. Lek construction could benefit the species in extensive blocks of homogeneous vegetation where a paucity of suitable lek sites is a limiting factor; lek construction also could attract birds away from frequently disturbed sites. Display grounds should be established at least 1.2 km from other suitable active leks or use may be minimal. Based on 860 radio-fixes of 19 lesser prairie chickens, minimum home ranges were between 160-786 ha (November), 94-1,946 ha (December), 85-331 ha (January), and 6 2 ha (February). Mean day-to-day movements reflected a similar trend, i.e., increasing November through December and decreasing January through February. In December, a juvenile male began long-distance, uni-directional movements away from the lek where banded. He traversed 12.8 km in less than 5 days, with a maximum movement of 2.9 km/day. Birds preferred shinnery oak (Quercus havardii)-little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) and shinnery oak-sand sagebrush (Artemisia filifolia) vegetation types over shinnery oak and mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa)-blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) types from November to February. Use of a sunflower field was heavy during December and January. Movement data suggested a minimum management unit of approximately 32 km^. Habitat requirements include a minimum of 40 percent of the area in plants providing at least 10 percent canopy coverage during winter.