© 2025
In touch with the world ... at home on the High Plains
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Our translator station serving St. Francis and Cheyenne County at 96.3 FM is off the air due to an air conditioning breakdown at its leased transmitter site, making it too hot for HPPR's equipment to operate. We are currently working to fix the situation. We apologize for the loss of service and ask listeners to tune to KZNK at 90.1 FM or listen on line through the player above or HPPR's mobile app.

Grassland Bird: Swainson's Hawk

tgreybirds.com

This raptor migrates from its winter home in Argentina into western North America and breeds as far north as Canada. It's fate is tied to the amount of open rangeland left in the western prairie, and lots of habitat has been lost in the 20th Century after range land was broken out and farmed. The bird helps producers by eating insects, mammals and reptiles considered by producers to be pests. Conservation Reserve Program-enrolled land provides the type of habitat the bird can thrive in. This Playa Country episode is the fourth in a four-part series on grassland birds. It originally aired August 13, 2013.