From inside their covered wagons, western bound immigrants heard the haunting sounds coming from the landscape before the sun rose and thought the world around them was haunted. It was spring and the Prairie Chickens in the thousands would be on their lek doing what chickens do. When the sun shined light on their “ghosts,” the pioneers realized breakfast had been provided them. The Prairie Chickens has been in trouble ever since. There are few refuges left for the chickens and we were so fortunate to spend time at one of them this past week. The amazing folks at Calamus Outfitters are conserving their habitat on their ranch and have created for us photographers an incredible opportunity to see, witness and photograph this very unique piece of our wildlife heritage.
These are Greater Prairie Chickens and the calm you see in the top photo, it’s hard to imagine all that goes on for this male to find a mate and their less than 30sec moment with that female. They bob their heads, stump their feet, boom, flare their “horns” or pinnaes, and so much more all in an attempt to get the female’s attention. And when that and a whole lot more doesn’t work, they spar. What still amazes me after decades of watching this sparing is how, with the naked eye, they simply appear to be jumping up and down. But when you photograph them (shooting D5 @12FPS, 800mm) and look at their leap frame by frame, you see just how cut throat these chickens are to each other. They are simply nasty!
Photographically, while freezing the sparing is very cool, showing the motion in a still image to me is even cooler. So then comes the dance of a fastest enough shutter speed to freeze the eye but slow enough to blur the wings. It’s a really low, low, low percentage shot. As in, shooting 30-40 images to get one that works like the one above. Shot at ISO 400, 1/200, it has just the right combo of sharpness and blur along with the story. I mean, look at the chicken, it looks like it’s going to land on the back of the other and stomp on it! The intensity in the stare and blur of the wings, it brings out the fierce competition in an otherwise, simple chicken. It’s just one of many reasons I love Prairie Chickens.