Sunday morning on the lesser prairie chicken lek






Sunday morning started early with a 3:45 am call to the van for the trip out to a local farm's lek. Chilly, windy, dark....a typical start to a viewing of the prairie chicken mating ritual.  The males strutted their stuff for three hours, hopping, flying, biting tail feathers, showing their best skills.  

The females would have none of it on this visit.  One walked around, checking out the males, but ended up staying by herself.  In this last image above, you can see the leg band that researcher, Dr. Jackie Augustine, is likely to have placed on this bird for her studies.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-augustine-8111aa8

At least twice, the harrier hawk made a pass over the lek and each time most of the chickens flew away, only to return when the hawk was out of the lek area.  Why all of them did not fly off could be the subject of another study.





Comments

  1. MarshallApril 12, 2022 at 8:34 PM

    Wonderful photos!
    Marshall

    ReplyDelete
  2. CandiApril 12, 2022 at 10:15 PM

    #1 winner, winner chicken dinner!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sandy ZelaskoApril 14, 2022 at 7:05 AM

    This was probably our best day for photographing so far. Weather has been our nemesis! Opportunities should improve as we round our way home the next few days. A couple more leks on the schedule.

    ReplyDelete

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