Perspectives

Attwater Prairie Chicken (captive bird) - Texas A&M Small Upland Bird Research Facility

Tomorrow I will be headed to Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge with the local Rio Brazos Audubon Society. Actually, I am headed down to photograph at sunrise and then meeting the rest of the group around mid morning. Should be a pretty great trip. I look forward to getting some photos as well as getting some birding and social time with other birders.

If you have been following my blog for a while, you will recognize Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge as I spent a fair bit of time down there last spring. The refuge is set up to protect the nearly extinct Attwater Prairie Chicken. These birds, technically a subspecies of the Greater Prairie Chicken, are found on just three prairies here in the Houston area and the total wild population numbers less than 75 individuals. Today, the species survives only through a captive breeding program that releases birds each year to supplement the wild population.

This past spring, I put together an article on these birds and the recovery effort for the Texas Ornithological Society’s Texas Birds Annual.  I haven’t seen a copy of the article yet but hopefully there will be a copy online soon.  When it is posted, I will let everyone know about it.  

Tomorrow we won’t be looking for the prairie chickens but instead will be looking for songbirds, waterfowl, and more.  Hopefully I will have some photos to post tomorrow night or Sunday.

Lesser Prairie Chickens - Milnesand Prairie Preserve, Milnesand, New Mexico

This morning was my last morning on the lek and it was quite a good morning. I had lots of fighting going on right in front of me though I am a bit disappointed by the background. The birds were fighting right between me and a huge water tank and unfortunately, you can see the tank fairly clearly. In any case, I still love the images I came away with.

I also realized I haven’t posted much in the way of a standard portrait and one of the things I have been after is a nice headshot of one of the males while he is displaying. Again, this morning proved productive and I had a hen walk right by my blind escorted by a parade of displaying males and Bingo!

I am now headed off to the Roswell area to visit Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The winds are shifting around and its much cooler than it was the past few days (29 when I got in the blind this morning) but I think the weather will be alright for a couple days camping. Don’t know if I will have internet access so can’t promise any blogs but will see what I can do.

Coyote - Milnesand Prairie Preserve, Milnesand

Tonight the wind continued and I just didn’t have the energy to fight the wind. I still went out to a lek for a bit but didn’t even have a chance to photograph anything in about an hour so I gave up and came home to relax and get some rest since I am headed back on the road tomorrow. The above image is a Coyote from this morning that wandered through.

Lesser Prairie Chickens - Milnesand Prairie Preserve, New Mexico

Once again the wind this morning had dropped way down so I was able to set up my blind around 5:00 at a new lek.  By the time I was settled in and set up around 5:30 I was totally surrounded by displaying chickens.  Shortly after sunrise, two birds started a fight on a raised mound off in the distance a tiny bit and the above image is the result.  It is a crop from a horizontal image but I simply love it.  Getting this image makes the entire morning though if I had to nitpick it I would wish for the fence in the background to disappear but hey, its part of the story.

Other highlights this morning included a couple of coyotes that passed through and I got some decent shots of them in the landscape.  Several Cottontails (Desert rather than Eastern I think), burrowing owls, and Black-tailed Prairie Dogs also made an appearance throughout the morning.

Lesser Prairie Chicken Drinking - Milensand Prairie Preserve, Milnesand, NM

This afternoon I returned to my blind that I had set up this morning.  I had my doubts that it would still be there but sure enough, it was there, if a bit teardrop shaped rather than a nice dome but thats not a big deal.  I spent about 3 hours there this evening and had a chance to photograph more than just Lesser Prairie Chickens.  Tonight I had several sparrows including Lark and one that I still need to ID (these western sparrows are all new to me), Killdeer, Lark Buntings, and probably a few other things that aren’t coming to mind at the moment.

I set up next to the water hole in order to photograph the prairie chickens as they came in to drink, something I have not seen photographed much, if at all.  Once I got in the blind I began having doubts if anything would ever come near me because the blind was shaking and making a racket due to the strong winds.  Once again, my doubts proved to be baseless and I had a fine evening photographing.  Above, you can see one of my favorite images of the session.  A hen made her way out onto a little peninsula exactly where I had hoped and proceeded to drink her fill.  It is hard to see in this version, but there are a couple water drops in the air that have just fallen off her bill.

I am back at it again tomorrow and hopefully will be trying a new lek tomorrow.  I just have to decide which one!