Breeding Season for Birds on the Prairie


Like with most bird species, Spring is the season! 

The action begins in late March and lasts throughout April with offspring hatching after approximately 23-26 days. Females typically lay anywhere from 7-17 eggs in tall, dense grass and on the ground under sagebrush.

Only one or two dominant males at a lek usually procure most of the mating opportunities. In the case of prairie chicken males, they stomp their feet rapidly or “dance” to attract females. Greater sage grouse show off in a booming, "strutting" courtship display somewhat different from sharp tail grouse and lesser or greater prairie chickens. But all males fight off other males to show dominance for the chance to breed and defend their territory.

Plan your visit accordingly. In our experience, the earlier in the season the better. 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Weather and Best Made Plans

Image
  Christine and I thought we would have a solid day of sharp-tailed grouse photography behind us and ready to share images. But with temperatures in the mid teens and wind chill factor at near -3 degrees, we thought better of visiting the blind this morning.  Yes, we "chickened" out. Wind whipped up large particles of dust and flying debris so powerful it was almost impossible to open a car door or a window to photograph from. Smartphones were our friend today. A couple minutes outside the vehicle and you felt your bones begin to freeze, the grit in your teeth and foreign particles in your eyes.  The chances we were going to find any animal out and about, including grouse on a lek, was unlikely. So we made the decision to sleep in and wait until the weather improved. Tomorrows forecast is no different but we have two more days in South Dakota and two more chances at photographing the "sharpies" (sharp-tailed grouse) we came for.  Further disappointing news came from...
Read more

Another day, another lek

Image
The South Dakota prairie continues to be cold and windy.  That did not seem to be a concern for the Sharp-tailed Grouse this morning. We headed out to the lek at 5 am today bundled up again in all we owned since it was 22F with just a slight 11 mph wind gently bending the grasses. By 5:45 am, the birds were dancing all over the lek as the sky lightened slowly before 6:06 am sunrise. We never got the yellow sunlight.  Snow was predicted so the sky was low and grey...tough conditions for photographing. In the first image above, the typical hovering aircraft position is one of several behaviors of this grouse species.  The males hop a little, strut around in this fighter jet position with very quick short running steps, and then confront another male to begin the dance again.  We saw more than 30 birds this morning. It is always hard to count and photograph and keep the trigger finger warm.  We were positioned well today with many observation choices.
Read more

Setting up the Blind

Image
Here we are setting up a blind, or a hide some call it. Basically it is a pop-up tent secured to the ground with tent poles to keep it from blowing away in the wind. Which eventually happened anyway. It has a number of windows so we could photograph birds from inside but those windows are open portals letting cold winds enter. We dressed very warmly.  The purpose of a blind is to make us less conspicuous to the birds we are photographing and best allow the grouse to maintain their natural behavior. By no means do we wish to disturb or alter the courting and mating process. We are here to witness and document activities and better tell the story of declining grassland birds, birds who call prairies their home and who have lost 53% of their population over the last 50 years due to climate, habitat loss and other factors. To avoid any disturbance, is necessary to set up the blind before birds arrive at the lek. So we arrive at our destination and make sure to be comfortably set up ins...
Read more