lek
Portrait of a male Greater Prairie-Chicken, Tympanuchus cupido.
Image: Dave Rintoul, KSU. 2007.
This morning, I had the great privilege to watch male Greater Prairie-chickens, Tympanuchus cupido pinnatus, perform on a lek site located on the Konza Prairie in Kansas, along with Dave Rintoul's ornithology class. Not only was this the first time I'd seen lekking behavior for this species, but this was the first time I'd ever seen this species in the wild.
To do this, I crawled out of bed at 430am, so I had enough time to comb the tangles out of my hair (I learned that all hair conditioners…
tags: birds, Greater Sage-Grouse, Centrocercus urophasianus, ornithology, Image of the Day
Okay, I have to brag a little bit. I have been invited to Manhattan, Kansas, to go birding with Dave Rintoul and his ornithology students for one week at the end of March. I am almost beside myself with excitement right now as I look through Dave's many bird images -- which remind me of my own years of springtime birding on the west coast of this country. How I miss those days, and those birds!
This is the seventh and last (for a little while) image in this series of Dave's beautiful pictures. Dave and…