Prairie chickens and sharptailed grouse. My reason is complicated but I'll give it a shot. These two grouse are reminders to me of a gamebird that is totally tied to the prairie, not pheasants nor hungarian partridge. If you plow up the prairie and only leave small patches of it they will be gone, replaced by partridge and pheasants. On the other hand these grouse have found that man's crops are well worth using and will use harvested grainfields to feed in. It's a pretty handy arrangement. So if there is plenty of moderately grazed prairie with a patchwork of crops here and there there will be grouse. Not to mention I like eating them.
Even at my age
I get all excited before a grouse hunt, can't sleep. At the end of the day if we have a few birds I can't wait for dinner. Last fall I was telling my son while breasting out some birds, "Ya gotta handle them with care." We did and ate good that night