Greater Prairie Chickens, Whooping Cranes and more...

[dale]

My day started out at 5:40 am in a blind in a farmer's field in central Wisconsin and then went to Necedah. By 1:30 pm I had seen 7 Greater Prairie Chickens in full booming, stomping, inflating, strutting display (7 rough-legged hawks watched too!!); 7 (what's with the 7s?) whooping cranes, including one embarrassingly botched copulation; lots of sandhills, including a big airborne "V" of them; a number (maybe 7?) of bald eagles (including two ginormous nests); a bunch of red-headed woodpeckers and, to top it off, a resplendent wild turkey. Favorite moments were the prairie chicken that slipped on the ice; the rough-legged hawk that seemed to catch something but turned out not to have; the aforementioned defective whooper copulation; a huge eagle standing on an icy lake, just standing; the beautiful color of the sandhill cranes; one particularly GLOWING red-headed woodpecker and the turkey, of course, which was, shall we say, taking.
Its. Time. To. Cross. The. Road.
I may or may not have adequate photos of the grouse. Mostly I was watching.

[gayle]

Dale, thanks for this wonderful description of your amazing day!  The mental images are vivid.  Seeing any one of your heptads of birds would have boggled my mind!

Gayle

[dale]

and thank YOU, Gayle. I was thinking of you the whole time. Your birds.
Well, the turkey was mine.
And the marsh harrier that I really wanted to see but that flew behind some trees, that was my bird

[Kris G.]

Sounds like you had an interesting birding day! How about that Grouse pic?

[dale]

Sounds like you had an interesting birding day! How about that Grouse pic?

my dinky little videos actually came out MUCH better than the photos - it was dark out (!!!) and the birds were not right in my face (I was in a blind) and my Lumix was on maximum zoom and even so just barely coping. I'm figuring out how to upload the videos to youtube. Will post link(s) if I can manage...

here are just a few of the "grouse" (aka the extremely endangered Greater Prairie Chickens) during their mating ritual. This is accompanied by two sounds...one is like when you blow air over a beer bottle neck - the other is a higher noise.

The last one of these I'm only including because of the bird on a post in the background. You can't tell because of the distance but that is a big rough-legged hawk! They were all over the place.

Oh...and those things in the background of the third photo - that look like big cartoon rabbits? they are not. Those are Prairie Chickens in full mating display.

[schlaf374]

Great pix of the Prairie Chickens, and a good description of the sounds they make.

[Shaky]

Great pix of the Prairie Chickens, and a good description of the sounds they make.
^^^^^^^^^

At first glance, I thought that said "Grand Prix" of Prairie Chickens.

[Kris G.]

What beautiful birds!  Would love to hear their mating sounds-your description sounds interesting!

[dale]

Here's a great recording, Kris.
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/greater_prairie-chicken/sounds
It sounded a lot like that, except for the beer-bottle sound, which you only hear clearly at the end of this file, was constant and sort of a background for the other cry, which was also constant.

[Kris G.]

Here's a great recording, Kris.
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/greater_prairie-chicken/sounds
It sounded a lot like that, except for the beer-bottle sound, which you only hear clearly at the end of this file, was constant and sort of a background for the other cry, which was also constant.

Besides the beer bottle sound, another sound was like a human cackling to someone who inhaled helium! Too funny! I bet the displaying males are a sight to behold!

[dale]

I bet the displaying males are a sight to behold!

they are. They make this funny motion with their neck to inflate those orange things, and tappity-tap stomp their feet. It's all so ritualized-looking. They stalk around trying to freak each other out. Apparently when they do these jumping lunges at each other with their nails out they can do some damage. When they fold up all their fancy business, however, the males look very much like females -- we were told that they sometimes do that to try to slip past another male.

[Patti from Kentucky]

Two seriously endangered species in one day!  I'm so excited for you, but envious!  Somewhere on my bucket list is a trip to one of the places where endangered grouse do their mating displays (I've been thinking Sage Grouse in Wyoming, but your Prairie Chickens look pretty cool.)  Aren't red-headed woodpeckers stunning?  I've seen a bunch around here and they never fail to make my eyes pop out of my head. 

[dale]

Aren't red-headed woodpeckers stunning?  I've seen a bunch around here and they never fail to make my eyes pop out of my head. 

They are. They are on fire. This one bit of woods at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge is just perfect for them, apparently - I was told there are 33 nesting pairs right there!

"Studying red-headed woodpecker nesting ecology on its newly restored savannas, Refuge staff found that nearly 100% of the nests were in dead limbs. Sometimes the dead limbs were on living trees, sometimes on dead trees but the red-heads always drilled their nest cavity as high off the ground as possible and always in a cluster of trees with dead limbs. In fact, Refuge staff discovered that there is a critical threshold of trees with dead limbs around nests. Below this threshold, the probability of a red-headed woodpecker nest being present is very low. Above this threshold, the probability of red-head nesting rapidly increases."

[Kris G.]

Two seriously endangered species in one day!  I'm so excited for you, but envious!  Somewhere on my bucket list is a trip to one of the places where endangered grouse do their mating displays (I've been thinking Sage Grouse in Wyoming, but your Prairie Chickens look pretty cool.)  Aren't red-headed woodpeckers stunning?  I've seen a bunch around here and they never fail to make my eyes pop out of my head. 

We were at a friend's house in Lake of the Ozarks, MO a few years ago when a Red-headed Woodpecker flew to a tree just above where we were standing. It was my first and only one to ever see and they are beautiful!

[Bobbie Ireland]

Fun to read what people have on their Bird Bucket Lists (as Patti said). Here (I think I have said this before, and caused great confusion) - we call them Bogie Birds... ones that continue to evade us, no matter how hard we try. Mine are Cranes! Maybe I should start a new topic for Bogie Bucket Birds...