Birding The Tien Shan Mountains Part 1

July 8, 2009

I've blogged quite a bit about the first part of my amazing trip to Kazakhstan. We spent the first half on the Steppes (short grass prairie) and then flew from Astana to Almaty. I think my favorite part of the trip was exploring the Tien Shan Mountains near Almaty--beautiful, remote, rugged. Everywhere you went, even in downtown Almaty (above) you felt that adventure was just around the corner.

And for people who think birding is boring, I submit this photo. How can you see birders perched on on a peak surrounded by snow capped mountains in Kazakhstan and say that bird watching is boring? Especially with the types of birds we saw.

Look at this little beauty. This is a Himalayan rubythroat singing on territory--I love that I saw birds with the word "Himalaya" mixed into their name. Some of the other birds our group saw on this glorious day included red-mantled rosefinch and fire-fronted serin.

After an interesting breakfast of cold cuts, tomato cucumber salad, porridge, various breads, really white sausage, and Nescafe we loaded up into vans and took some very vertical and rutted dirt roads into the Tien Shan Mountains. We were on our way to Ili Alatau National Park (follow the link to the park and take note of the wildlife species list). It was a warm May day outside our hotel but I noticed that the mountains in the distance had snow, so I wore my convertible pants, socks with my Keens, wore a fleece and kept a scarf around my neck.

Everywhere we looked, we were surrounded by grandeur. We made a few stops for soaring raptors and found black kites and a non raptor called a chough (pronounced "chuff"). All kinds of smaller birds could be heard echoing from the mountains.

We made a stop here for brown dipper. It was cumbersome getting a large group of eager digiscopers around the rocks, we were all impatient for this cool life bird and anxious to get a photo. I got a brief look and the bird flew round the bend. Some of the group followed, but I opted to stay in my spot. If this dipper was like the dippers in North America, it would be back.

While I waited, a grey wagtail perched nearby. One of the British birders made a comment that I shouldn't be wasting time with that species, there were more exciting ones to be seen. Wagtails in all sorts of color variations are prevalent in Europe and since I hadn't been anywhere near Europe up to that point, it was very exciting to me.

The group that followed the brown dipper got great looks at a mating display. All of us ended up getting photos of this little brown bobbing bird.

We eventually made to our destination--Big Almaty Lake. Our target bird was a shorebird called an ibisbill. The birds have nested in this area in the past. Alas, we did not see it on this trip, but who cares when you have scenery like that to take in? Despite all the snow and ice, it was perfect hiking weather. I even had to remove the fleece because I got so hot.

There was a pair of common kestrels hunting over our heads (above is the male). That was not the only falcon--there was also a pair of Eurasian hobbys screaming and flying overhead--I was so excited to see those and they totally make up for the lack of ibisbill. I have always wanted to see a hobby ever since I was a kid and watched an episode of the Leo the Lion called The Falcons when an angry flock of hobby falcons get dropped off in Leo's jungle via a tornado and attack all the animals.

While we were walking, we could hear Himalayan snowcocks calling all around us. They sound kind of like loons or perhaps a bit more like elk. I scanned the tops of the mountains wondering where they were when Philippe Jacques Dubois (the dude in the above photo) actually found them with the scope!

The arrow is pointing to roughly where the snowcock was standing and calling.

And there is the snowcock and here is a link so you can what they look like close up. There was also a female who would pop up and down causing the male to go into full display mode--it was awesome. I was so excited to see these birds here in their native habitat. We actaully have a population of these birds in Nevada...a snowcock introduction program was started in the 1960s because Nevada felt there weren't enough native game birds to hunt, so why not bring in an Asian species?

But being surrounded by the gorgeous mountains while listening to the lonely wail of the snowcock made for a perfect day.

More coming.

Mourning Cloaks All Over The Freakin' Place

June 29, 2009

My goodness, those mourning cloak caterpillars pupated quickly!

Less than two weeks after gathering a whole boat load of mourning cloak caterpillars on the bike trail, the all emerged at about the same time. I was engaged in a phone meeting when I looked over and saw all the activity unfolding in my butterfly ranch. I had to suppress my excitement, not every adult understands a big girly scream of delight at watching butterflies emerge.

All told, of the 13 caterpillars I picked up, 11 emerged into butterflies. One never emerged and one ended up having parasites. I noticed that particular caterpillar didn't crawl as much as the others and ended up forming it's pupae on the ground of the ranch, rather than on the ceiling like the others. I had meant to toss it, fearing that being on the ground would lead to deformation in the pupae. When I went to throw it away, I noticed the all too familiar pods of flies next to the pupae. I flushed them all.

I was most excited to get photos of the mourning cloaks that emerged--isn't that a dynamite looking butterfly? They are my favorite butterfly, but they are so flighty outside, I rarely get one in the right position to get a photo of their fabulous and subtle colors. They are still a bit groggy as they dry out, you get to spend lovely little moments with them, studying all their detail, color, and beauty they would normally hide from what they think would be a potential predator. This is another creature that makes me wish I could paint. Again, I wish I could just spend a few hours getting lost in the color and patterns on the wings, examining the fine subtle texture of the wings.

Look at that face, the intrepid face of a butterfly about to take on the world.

I had to go to work at the park service during the day and some of the mourning cloaks were still emerging and not quite dry, so I took them with me for release there. There are plenty of plants for them to nectar on around the building.

This is one of the longest lived butterflies. I was trying to read more about them on the Interent. I found at Butterflies and Moths that after they emerge they feed briefly, estivate until fall, when they re-emerge to feed and store energy for hibernation...Okay, if you are like me, you are wondering, "What the heck does estivate mean?"

Well, "to estivate" is kind of like "to hibernate," it's just so darn hot, they lay low until it cools off. Then the mournin cloaks will feed again and then hibernate through the winter, wake the following spring and start the process all over again. No wonder they can live so long--they're sleeping most of the time.

So, the butterflies are off the the world, it was cool having them pupate in my kitchen for a few days. Here's a video of some of them taking off. The pump up their wings and then off they go.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FLz6bc9eSE[/youtube]

Los Andes Private Nature Reserve In Guatemala

June 22, 2009

Why, hello there, Mr. Clay-colored thrush! I totally forgot about this photo I took of you at Los Andes in Guatemala!

While working on another project, I discovered a huge backlog of blog posts--I have parts of Guatemala that I haven't blogged about yet--one of them was my absolute favorite lodge we visited. Doing some real digging in my photos, I have entries from last year's Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival--doh! So, we're going to catch up on a few spots as well as talk about Kazakhstan over the next week.

If I ever have the chance to return to Guatemala, I want to return to Los Andes Private Nature Reserve. It's a farm that supports 80 families and grows organic tea, shade-grown coffee and quinine. Surrounding the farm are several rubber tree plantations as well. Parts of it are left untouched and you can find quetzals there. The most common bird I saw while we were there was the yellow-winged tanager (above).

The lodge itself offered a cozy, family atmosphere. Comfortable couches, tons of books, info on the rich family history--an even Internet access. I was able to use Skype here to call Non Birding Bill free over the Internet. Dinners were family style and prepared on premises. You knew when each meal was almost ready, you could hear the cooks in the kitchen patting out the homemade tortillas. Olga, the owner, was quick to offer us samples of their own coffee and tea. She even made us fresh chai--what heaven to drink those beverages while slowly meandering around outside the house...

...and watching dynomite birds like socail flycatcher and red-legged honeycreeper. I could easily spend two weeks at this place. If I ever write a birding romance novel, I would set it here.

There were some familiar sites, like tons of monarch caterpillars. I've read that there are six generations of monarchs in a year. Since it was February, I wondered if this was the first generation after the one that over-winters?

There were also quite a few great kiskadees around--a bird I see quite a bit in south Texas. They look very similar to the social flycather. Note the large heavy bill on the above kiskadee.

Note the smaller dainty bill on the social flycatcher. The also sound quite different. The kiskadee seems to shout, "kisk ka DEE!" Here's a social flycatcher singing:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb91w3TDeEc[/youtube]

Almost like the kid brother of the kiskadee trying really hard, but comes off a tad whiny. Cute birds and a treat to watch while sipping organic tea.

This is a holding pond on the property and it was chock full of birds, again some familiar like indigo and painted buntings. So exciting to see where are breeding birds, party and hang out in the winter. I don't blame them for coming to Guatemala at all--beautiful and lots of seeds and insects to eat (Los Andes also have sunscreen and insect repellent ready to grab at a moment's notice). There was even a great-tailed grackle hunting and eating small lizards around the water.

This is a white-collard seedeater lurking in some of the grasses.

Check out this crazy looking bird! It's called a masked tityra. Follow this link for a better photo of one, so you can really see how striking this bird looks. I think there are some issues as to where this bird belongs in field guides. It used to be considered a tyrant flycatcher (those are the classy, somewhat easy to id flycatchers like kiskadees and scissor-tailed flycatchers, not the mind-numbingly hard to id empidonax flycatchers--incidentally, those are not all the same bird in that linked photo). However, there still seems to be some debate as to where it belongs, how to call that category and what other birds would fit in there. Bottom line, it's a crazy looking bird.

I saw many types of trogons while in Guatemala, but getting photos of them proved more challenging that i realized. Above is the beautiful backside of a violaceous trogon, perched in a tree right outside the lodge. We did explore other parts of the reserve and that is in a coming post. However, if you are looking for a place to do some relaxing birding, eat great local food, drink tea and coffee that is good for birds, and just visit with good people--Los Andes is it. Don't get me wrong, you can do hardcore birding and there are some strenuous trails here, but it was just such a joy to slowly work around the lodge itself and soak in so many colorful birds.

Even when it rained, you could stand at the window and enjoy the view.

Bioblitz Buntings and Prothonotary Warblers

June 16, 2009

Watch out! It's the world's angriest indigo bunting!

Last weekend's MN Bioblitz was great fun--if you don't know, a Bioblitz is an event where people try to document as many living species in a 24 hour period as they can: birds, fish, mammals, insects, plants, fungus, reptile--everything that is alive. I was sorry that I didn't get a chance to see some of the other non birding events, but the banding station ended up getting quite busy. I was so happy that Mark Newstrom volunteered his time to set up his nets so banding could be part o the day's activities.

We started with a morning bird walk around Crosby Park where we saw a ton of great birds, in particular, the above cedar waxwing (who is scratching his neck). Our small, but dedicated group on the walk was hoping for a prothonotary warbler...and we found a few. At first we heard what sounded to be two singing. I was anxious to try and get a photo since my only photo was the sad blue I got at the World Series of Bird last year. We listened to try and determine where the bird was, we were in a high traffic area and kept looking in the bushes. There were several birds perched and singin on the wire, one looked like a really bright goldfinch and then I realized...that was where the song was coming from. I aimed my scope and...

...Holy Crap! There's a male prothonotary warbler singing...out in the open...in perfect sun! Apparently, this guy did not get the memo that warblers are to skulk and hide and unlike children, they should be heard and most certainly not seen. He was so accommodating, I was able to get a video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUqJOKEj_-M[/youtube]

He's just one of the coolest warblers ever! Bright gold in front, delicate sky blue wings in the back! Did you notice that in the video he was kind enough to show both sides? Again, he must not be part of the official warbler union.

And the beauty did not end there, we ended up getting three male indigo buntings in the nets! Crosby Park is just loaded with buntings, they like to nest on the edge of woodlands and their active song is noticeable. I'm quite certain that one of the tree birds we got in was the bird that I digiscoped the other day at Crosby. One of the nets was near his territory and after we captured the buntings, we didn't hear him sing for awhile. He had to preen that greasy human touch off of his feathers.

What a treat to be able to show a kid an indigo bunting up close. My favorite part is when it's time to let the bird go. If a kid is nearby, I look down and ask, "You want to release it?"

Most kids say yes and all get a combination of glee and anxiousness in their face. When I placed the above male in that little girl's hands she gasped, "Oh! He's so soft!"

Take that, nature deficit disorder!

Another thing that is fun to do with kids (and frankly, adults) is when a larger bird comes in (like the above female cowbird) and put them up to their ears so they can hear the bird's heartbeat--it sounds like a cat purring. What a great way to open the conversation up to talk about a bird's metabolism and how much they eat and how they can survive in various temperatures.

This cowbird hit the net the same time a female common yellowthroat did. I wondered if the cowbird had been about to make her move to the yellowthroat nest and deposit an egg. Mark blew on her feathers near her vent:

You could see the area was swollen and an egg beneath her transparent skin. Normally, when banding birds during nesting season, we release them near where they were trapped so they can go right back to the nest, but in the cowbird's case, we let her go in the opposite direction.

As we were about to wind up our banding station, we had three redstarts hit the nets. At first, we though we had two males (that's a male above) and one female. Males are kind of like mini orioles--small and orange black. Females are more grey and yellow.

The bird that I took out of the net and thought was female, ended up being a second year male. It takes redstarts two years to get their black and orange plumage. This bird was in transition. Still mostly in his immature plumage, but his tail feathers were already showing black. It was fun to show kids how you can sometimes get a very good idea of how old a bird is in hand.

I have to say that I have new respect for Crosby Park--even though it's in a very urban area, lots of great birds are there. We also heard both yellow-billed and black-billed cuckoos, broad-winged hawks, saw a beaver, someone else reported a river otter. It's a great place that I'll have to visit more often.

I Learned Why It's Called A Rookery!

May 23, 2009

Hey, if you're looking for a good reference of collective bird names, check this out. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling about as giddy as a a conventicle of magpies. I've had more than one person ask me why heron colonies are called "rookeries" and I've never gotten around to looking up the answer. Well, I had the chance to find out first hand why they are called that.

We found a few spots in Kazakhstan where several large nests were built in the trees--not unlike heron nests.

Only these were not built by herons, but were built by rooks. They look like crows with a sort of reverse goatee thing going on. The area around their bill is featherless and shows pale gray skin. As we were looking at a rook in the field guide, my buddy Clay read, "Rooks nest in colonies called 'rookeries."

We both looked at each other and said, "Duh!"

I was excited at this realization--ah rooks--nesting together in a rookery--like a heron rookery. I was surprised that I didn't figure this out sooner. I have been vaguely aware of rooks, but since they are like crows and crows in my neck of the woods are not colony nesters, I never put two and two together.

Rooks are a common bird in Kazakhstan and in Europe. One of our fellow participants by the name of Mike Weedon thought it odd that I came all the way to Kazakhstan to get a photo of what would be a common garden bird for him--but one person's common bird is another's lifer.

Here's a video that isn't all that exciting, except that you can hear other rooks calling the background. I chuckled because I realized that when I was a kid and watched the movie, The Last Unicorn, rook calls were used in the background.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMx3D63ZMxQ[/youtube]

The Steppe Family

May 22, 2009

So in some ways it was like being around one large blended family when birding the Kazakh Steppes: What gull is that? Steppe gull. What eagle is that? Steppe eagle? Oh, cute! What mammal is that? Steppe marmot.

Above is a Steppe eagle being mobbed by a hooded crows, rooks, and carrion crows (apparently the crows did not get the memo that they should be Steppe crows).

Now, if you're wondering why is this area called The Steppes--is it one large stair case? No, it's basically short-grass prairie and I think the word steppe comes from a Russian word...which I don't have the keyboard to spell. Although, I just went to Babel Fish and typed in "Steppe" and it gave me this: Степь.

Quite a bit of the birding was like birding in North and South Dakota. But unlike North Dakota where we're only seeing less than 1% of the prairie that was once there, in Kazakhstan...it goes on and on and on. Our tour info read that there are less then 6 people per square mile in Kazakhstan. When you got out of the cities, you could feel how that number was true.

Above is a pair of Steppe marmots...kind of like groundhogs where I live. Although, with their coloring, they kind of looked like over sized prairie dogs.

Most in our group where digiscoping our adventures--using point and shoot cameras or SLRs attached to our spotting scopes to get photos. A few in our group would use their own cameras. It was fun to watch them sneak up closer and closer to the marmots. I actually have video of their movements...but I'm pretty sure I'd destroy some European relations if I posted it. As the photographers crouched closer and closer...

...the marmots crouched lower and lower in response. One finally went down in the burrow. The remaining marmot did not appear to buy our efforts at hiding:

It stood guard and barked at us. Here is a video and you can hear the high pitched barking (and lots of wind).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUp0szhgJvg[/youtube]

We all got our shots and then left the barking marmots in peace.

I'm sure that marmot is feeling very macho and said to its partner, "Did you see that? That group of twenty humans stopped near our burrow, about a half dozen of them closed in and my mighty bark forced them to flee. I am Macho Marmot, Terror of the Steppes!"

Just don't try that strategy with a Steppe eagle, dude.

Best Bird Festival Idea Ever

April 30, 2009

I have to say, that I enjoy attending bird festivals and events in general (I must, I go to more in a year, than most birders will in a lifetime). But, I was really struck by the Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival in Woodward, OK. Because the festival wasn't just about seeing the festival bird, but we actively helped the bird:

Oklahoma is a beautiful state with vast, sweeping landscapes, but it's also divided by several cattle fences. They are everywhere, dividing property lines. The fences have become a part of the many problems facing the lesser prairie-chicken's precarious future. The bird's natural defensive behavior when fleeing a predator, is to fly low, right above the grasses. If they are fleeing a fast predator like a peregrine falcon, the prairie-chickens may not pay attention in their panic and cannot dart the fences that are taller than the grasses. The chickens fly into the fences and die. Look at the above photo, you can see how the fence blends in to the grassy landscape.

Research about lesser prairie-chicken mortality conducted by The Sutton Center has found that 40% of the mortality in Oklahoma is due to collisions with these fences! If you follow the link to the lesser-prairie chicken ecology, you can read more about the results. It was interesting to note that female prairie-chickens are especially susceptible to fence collisions and that is a huge concern--they lay the eggs. Sure, they need the males for fertilization of the eggs, but beyond that, the , build the nest and raise the young--you need all the females you can get out there to replenish the population. The Sutton Center, however, has come up with a unique plan!

They have come up with a unique fence marking plan to save the lesser prairie-chicken. By using "undersill" strips (trim strips) of vinyl siding available at many big box home stores, fences can be made more visible to the chickens. Eric Beck, the Oklahoma Audubon Council's Important Bird Area Coordinator was a field trip leader for the festival. However, when not leading trips, he was cutting up strips of trim to be placed on fences.

After we watched the lesser prairie-chickens on the lek, we were given a filling ranch breakfast at Selman Ranch, shown how do the fence marking, and set loose with bags of tag to mark fences at a WMA that has prairie-chickens. This was the most proactive bird field trip I have ever been on at a bird festival. What a GREAT idea--show us this cool bird and let's not just lament that it's fate in the wild is uncertain, let's actually have festival participants do something that could actually help the birds. Best idea I've seen at a bird festival in years. I love this as much as I love the Delaware Bird-a-thon that raises money to buy up migratory habitat for the red knot. We need more of this kind of active conservation and birding.

And that's not to say that fences are the only challenge facing the lesser prairie-chicken. Wind farms are popping up all over Oklahoma. Lesser prairie-chickens nest out in the open on the ground, they don't nest next to all trees--red-tailed hawks and Swainson's hawks perch there, watching for some fat tasty prey. Tall windmills look a little too much like tall trees and lesser prairie-chickens will not nest next to the farms, so that fragments their nesting habitat even more.

Still challenges ahead, but still hope too.

Oklahoma Porcupines

April 26, 2009

One of the fun things about the Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival that I attended in Oklahoma was the opportunity to see an area owned by The Nature Conservancy normally closed to the public called Four Canyon Preserve. It wasn't very bird--the top of the canyons were so windy, you could barely hear any song, but the views were stunning and a reminder that Oklahoma is not all flat land.

Though we did not see much in the way of birds, we did see some porcupines. I grew up in Indiana and didn't have much experience with porcupines until I moved to Minnesota. I don't have mammals on my radar quite like birds, so I just assumed in my head that porcupines were a northern species. I did not expect to encounter in them in Oklahoma. However, I did notice a couple of dead ones on the road as soon as I arrived.

When I came home from the trip, I looked through one of my mammal books and was surprised to find that their range extends all over the western US. One of our birding group noticed this porcupine lurking under some cedars. At first, the porcupine only showed its backside, but I stayed behind while the group continued on the trail. When it was quiet, the porcupine turned around.

I slowly snuck in for a closer look. Apart from the now famous porcupet that my friend Gail took care of, I've never spent too much time up close with a porcupine. I moved slowly and quietly, the porcupine was sort of cornered in this nook. I'm sure it realized it had the upper hand in the situation. Porcupines cannot shoot their quills out, but if it decided to charge and run past, even brushing my leg would leave me with a few quills. But it seemed chill and I didn't dilly dally with my photos, just a few quick snaps and then I went on my way to catch up with our birding group.

Oh, and for those curious about how female porcupines are able to give birth without getting "quilled," it because the young are born with soft quills that harden within about two hours after coming out.

From the top of one of the canyons, we looked down and I spotted another porcupine sleeping in a tree. I read in one of my mammal books, that many porcupine specimins in museums were found to have healed fractures. The speculation was that while porcupines are known as good climbers, they might also be good fallers too. Perhaps they fall out the trees and just learn to deal with the injury?

While we watched this critter, our guide told us that there were many porcupines in Oklahoma and many ranchers shoot them because porcupines chew the bark on trees, making them look bad. It's funny that some ranchers don't like the aesthetics left behind by a porcupine since I have had the same feeling about the aesthetics of some of the overgrazed prairie we passed.

Other Oklahoma Birds Besides Prairie Chickens

April 23, 2009

For the record, I did see other birds besides lesser prairie chickens in Oklahoma. As a matter of fact, while I was focused on a pair of male chickens in the middle of a stare down, a yellow blur moved in front of them. I adjusted the focus of my scope to reveal a meadowlark. I'm not sure which one this is. We heard both eastern and western meadowlark singing around the prairie chicken lek and I'm not bold enough to call it based on plumage. The bird did not sing while I got its photo. I love this shot of the meadowlark with the chickens blurred in the background.

If you are new to birds and have never heard a meadowlark call...or not sure if you have, check them out at Xeno Canto. Here is the western and here is the eastern. I grew up with eastern meadowlarks in Indiana (a beautiful evening song) but the westerns are quite striking.

I have to say that there was quite a bit of adventure to our birding--one day about 4 different vehicles toting participants to birding spots got stuck in mud along the minimum maintenance roads. There had been quite a bit of rain beforehand. I heard through the grapevine that many vehicles got stuck on the way to the lesser prairie chicken leks. A tractor was required to get the vehicle out. Since that road was blocked, the field trip leaders cut a barb wire fence (with the fence owner's permission and the understanding it would be repaired) to get the vehicles to the blind--that's dedication to get birders to the birds! And what a great adventure to see the bird.

I really dug the sparrow action at the festival--check out this feeding station. Harris sparrows (dudes with the black beards) and a white-crowned sparrow. Harris sparrows are just amazing little birds. First, they look cool with the beard, but second, I was just reading on Cornell's newly revamped All About Birds site that they are the only sparrow that breeds in Canada and nowhere else. Here I was in Oklahoma watching these little brown birds, they still had thousands of miles to go to the breeding grounds.

Another incredibly common bird in Oklahoma was the equally striking lark sparrow. Just about anywhere there was a barb wire fence, you could find one of these guys perched nearby. Lark sparrows have an interesting nesting history. They are capable of building nests, usually in a shrub or tree, but they have been documented nesting in old woodpecker cavities. This species has also been known to reuse old nests of mockingbirds and some notes suggest that there is a bit of nest sharing going on--perhaps unintentional. Field studies have found eggs and young of both mockingbird and lark sparrow in the same nest. Oh, lark sparrow, please do not go the way of the cowbird.

Lesser Prairie Chicken aka Jets vs Sharks

April 21, 2009

I'm wrapping up my time in Oklahoma. The Leks, Treks, and More lesser prairie chicken festival is still going on with a cool post tour to Black Mesa, but I have to return to the Twin Cities to do some park rangerin' tomorrow. The festival had birding trips surrounded the Woodward area, but the main thrust of the festival was the lesser prairie chicken.

My first morning at the festival, I met the group at 5am to ride out to the Selman Ranch to get to the blinds. There had been some concerns about the rain that had recently fallen, making many of the unpaved roads we were taking a bit treacherous, but our experienced drivers got to us the area with the blinds. We had to scale two step ladders over a barbed wire fence...only this is a photo of when we were leaving, when we were on our way to the leks, we had to do this in darkness, the sun was not up yet. The leks we visited were on private property, cattle ranches.

These were the portable blinds we sat in on the prairie. Winds in Oklahoma are fierce and the blinds were staked deep into the ground. We sat three to a blind and I actually ended up in a blind with two fellow bloggers: Drawing the Motmot and From The Faraway, Nearby. I was a tad nervous, I discovered that morning that I forgot my deodorant and my toothbrush, I was going into the blind and hoped it would stay cool enough so I wouldn't stink up the joint.

It did stay cool, it felt like it was in the 40s, which was a treat for me, some greater prairie chicken viewing has been in 10 degree weather, so above freezing was a pleasure. The birds were so close, that we really did not need binoculars. I took this photo from the window without my scope. We arrived in the blinds in total darkness and sat waiting for the birds to start their display. I huddled beneath my layers, listening to all the sounds around us. Cattle waking and beginning their deep mooing. Turkeys gobbled in the distance, then we heard the gobbling of the chickens.

As the light in the morning grew brighter, I could get some photos of the male. Cornell Lab of Ornithology describes this interaction as, "Males display by exposing and enlarging the superciliary eye-combs, elevating tail to highest extent, erecting pinnae and positioning them forward and parallel to the ground, drooping wings and spreading primaries, extending neck and head in forward position, stamping feet on ground and moving forward, and expanding esophageal air sacs and producing Booming vocalization"

If that was hard to read or understand, Non Birding Bill made this animated giff of a "Before and After" of a male lesser prairie chicken displaying:

You can also watch a video I took of the behavior too (and more importantly, hear the sounds of these crazy dancing chickens).

The males went at it for a good hour. The danced, fluttered, squabbled, and stamped their feet in their individual territories. Periodically, a male would run over and challenge another male. They would bow and display to each other, almost like the start of some odd square dance. Some times there would be a display and the birds would walk away or sometimes, things would escalate into full on fighting with a few feathers left hanging and falling in the aftermath.

The males displayed themselves into utter exhaustion. I know how winded I can get on a dance floor and I'm just doing it for fun. These birds are doing it...sort of like the guys in the musical West Side Story. They are dance-fighting out their issues, nonstop without eating for several hours. These two males were bowing to each other and the male on the left, appeared unable to keep his eyes open, as if we were saying, "Dude, I'm too tired, let it go."

However, as soon as a female appeared on the scene, every male immediately woke up, it was as if all them were instantly injected with Red Bull. Their displays became more frantic and they ran back and forth around the female displaying their virility. We saw about three or four females approach the lek throughout the morning, it was interesting to watch their behavior. When a male approached, the female would hide in grasses and preen. If a male gave up, she would stop preening and watch the displays, I wondered what in the displays she was hoping to see--the size of the yellow pouches? The droop of the wings? The sound of the gobble?

I only saw one female select a male and attempt mating. That was the video I posted earlier...where we had some "male chicken blocking" going on. Considering how quick bird mating goes, that second attempt was probably successful in fertilizing on egg.

I did notice one male who apparently had some pouch issues. Do you see it? He has a hole. This most likely occured during one of the many fights we witnessed. Lesser prairie chickens have a sharp beak, so a good solid peck would damage the pouch, affected the gobble sounds and reduce this male's chances of mating with a female.

All in all it was a pretty cool experience and I loved hanging out in the blind and just watching one bird and absorbing its behavior. It was a treat sitting next to an artist and watching her sketch the lesser prairie chickens. I admire the ability to do what looks like a few simple strokes and capture the essence of a creature. Her sketchs also capture the movement and mood of the chicken. Here is a link to Drawing the Motmot's lesser prairie chicken sketches that she made in the blind--so cool.

Crap, I just looked at the time, I need to pack for my flight back to the Twin Cities, more Oklahoma adventures coming later!