greater prairie-chicken
grrlscientist | March 27, 2008
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…