Field Tech Forum

No website is complete without a proper photo of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken with its air sac inflated and pinnae erect. This is my favorite photo out of the hundreds I've taken of this majestic bird. The funny part is this is the very first one I took! It was 7˚ (Farenheit) when I got out of the car that day.

Here we see the majesty of the LPC in flight, lit by the soft colors of a Kansas sunrise. The obvious Easter egg here is the Horned Lark which looks on in awe as its grassland companion takes to the air.

Cool shots man! What kind of rig you using for those? Any tips? Kinda curious to get into the serious photography game myself, maybe get some side hustle stock photo $$ on the side while I travel.

ScurvyBrother wrote: ↑November 27th, 2023, 1:55 pm What kind of rig you using for those? Any tips? Kinda curious to get into the serious photography game myself, maybe get some side hustle stock photo $$ on the side while I travel.

I took those with Canon's entry level SLR which at the time was the T7i. Not sure what it is these days. You definitely want to use manual settings - for prairie chickens on the lek, you want the fastest shutter speed you can get away with. Shallow depth of field with big aperture isn't really a concern - I even like how the Horned Lark is a bit blurry. It kind of automatically gives you an effect you might add during post-processing - keeping the background blurry. Lower ISO is better if you can swing it.

Like with any wildlife photography you want it to be backlit, but with these birds specifically I wouldn't bother if it was more than an hour or so after sunrise.

Regarding stock photography, I hate to dash your dreams, but I don't think there's a huge financial opportunity there. Stock photography seems to do well when it's the most basic everyday stuff - a wooden spoon or yellow signs or something. I've submitted some pretty high quality landscape and wildlife photos and gotten basically no action. You'd probably be better off if you start your own photo store which you can advertise on social media or whatever method works for you.

Fantastic! What's the deal with these birds and what were you doing with them?

It's all well and good to share photos of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken, but and while their presence is necessary, I would be remiss in not sharing a photo of the closely related (in fact congeneric) Greater Prairie-Chicken.


To answer your question, all of these photos were taken in western Kansas, the only area where the two species overlap and hybridize and one of the five states where one can find the LPC and also find them in the greatest numbers. I studied them for my PhD research and I also worked as a prairie-chicken field tech in Kansas. More specifically I was observing their behavior and trapping them. In fact, the rope that this bird is surfing on is part of by bird catching apparatus.

Nice man! Keep 'em coming!

I don't know much about birds, what's the deal with these chickens?

Not exactly wildlife, but it does really tell a story about life in the western US. I call it "Wyoming Traffic Jam." And yes, I just had to sit there until they all left, which was a while. Sorry about the focus, but in a way it does kind of add to the sense of chaos.

socalsmooth wrote: ↑December 11th, 2023, 11:34 am Not exactly wildlife, but it does really tell a story about life in the western US. I call it "Wyoming Traffic Jam." And yes, I just had to sit there until they all left, which was a while.

How long exactly? Did you have anywhere to be?

omsweetom wrote: ↑December 7th, 2023, 1:55 pm Fantastic! What's the deal with these birds and what were you doing with them?

The short answer is that they're obligate grassland grouse. (Distantly) related to turkeys, quail, partridges, and (very distantly) domestic chickens.

The longer answer is that my research focused on behavior, breeding behavior specifically. Maybe you've seen videos of birds like sage grouse (to which they're much more closely related) - they were featured in the Grass episode of Planet Earth for example. During the breeding season, the males aggregate in big groups and do these crazy mating displays - weird moves and noises and so on. The females watch for a few weeks and then most of them mate with the same male. It's pretty mysterious as to what makes that one so great - there are many different theories with varying degrees of support. I was looking at mate choice and also some aspects of male-male interactions. This involved me trapping them and shooting hundreds of hours of videos of the mating displays. This took place in western Kansas, about halfway between Denver and Kansas City.

I included this in my latest blog post, but I wanted to have it here also. I consider it one of my greatest hits

^^^ greatest hits indeed. That is stunning. Well done.

Not a bird guy but that is COOL. So sharp. Dig the blurry background too. Really nailed that one kinger

Saw this guy at my feeder recently. Finally had some time to touch it up. I submitted it to Birds & Blooms today, hoping to become a published photographer. A rare time when I was happy to see a squirrel.

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Birds and Blooms? Looking to get some accolades from the Family Circus reading grandmas of America? But seriously that's cool, except for it being a squirrel an all. Dig that eye