Jaime Johnson
New member
Blind is small brown square in lower right.
Prairie Chicken Booming.
One of their disagreements.
About a month ago, Lisa and I spent some quality time with Prairie Chickens in Nebraska. Prairie Chickens are not found in Montana and we really wanted to spend some time with them. One of the images is of a blind (bottom right in image) used for Prairie Chickens. Prairie Chickens have barred feathers and long Pinnae feathers on their Head that resemble horns when erect and rabbit ears when laid flat. They have large orange air sacks that they inflate during their mating dance.
The Chickens Booming ritual consists of a three pitch sound usually followed up by what sounds like laughter. They inflate their air sacks and run in place with all of their feathers erect. The males often pair up and face off with their dancing. Fights regularly break out. When it gets too windy, they pair off and just stare at each other without booming. Then at about 9 or 10 Every morning, they all fly from the LEK and don’t return until the next day. Amazing..
We traveled to the blinds ensuring we were there about an hour before sunrise. Camera gear was ready to go then the magic would happen. The birds would fly to the LEK where the blind was Located. A LEK is a spot that the birds return to every year to perform their mating rituals (dances). It is really a spectacular thing to whiteness, at times we had as many as 50 birds in front of us. The weird thing about the LEKs is that they are just a spot in the middle of a field that looks like all of the rest of the field. But for some reason, a this fifty foot circle is magic to them.
I found this example of Prairie Chickens booming on youtube – not our video – just an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJBuZsj14zM
I found this definition of a LEK on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lek_(biology)
I attached a few examples, we have a new directory on our site with many more images: http://jaimejohnson.zenfolio.com/
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