Leucistic Greater Prairie-Chicken
Last week while attending Central Wisconsin Prairie Chicken Festival in Wisconsin Rapid, I got a chance to observe a leucistic greater prairie-chicken. Unlike albino, which is caused by a reduction in skin pigment, a leucistic is a condition characterized by reduced pigmentation on the bird’s feathers and an overall white appearance. This is probably a first-year bird considering his position on the lek – older and more experienced males usually occupy the center of the booming ground.
read moreHeath Hen – Trip to Martha’s Vineyard
(The pink line indicates my trip to Martha’s Vineyard.) After two plane connections, two hours of driving, and one hour on a ferry, I finally arrived at Martha’s Vineyard, the place where the Heath Hen was last seen. It was a daunting task – ‘What should I photograph? What images can tell a story of a species that is already extinct?’ I decided to go to the place where the Heath Hen was last seen and photograph the landscape with an old picture of the bird. (I acquired old pictures of the Heath Hen from the Alfred Gross collection.) At Manuel F. Correllus State Forest stands a...
read morePhotographing Plains Sharp-tailed Grouse
April 14 – April 16 It was my first trip to Mullin, Nebraska. I was welcomed by 40 mph winds and blowing snow. I spent the night in a motel room listening to the wind howl. By the following morning, over 20 inches of snow had drifted in front of my motel room. Mitch Glidden, the Sandhill motel owner and the grouse tour organizer, took me out to see Sharp-tailed Grouse. This was the first time for me to use a commercial blind to photograph grouse. Mitch set a school bus as a viewing platform, from which I could see 7 male sharp-tailed grouse arrive almost exactly when Mitch told me...
read moreDance of Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse on snow
April 9 – April 13 I came to Baggs, Wyoming to photograph the rare Columbian sharp-tailed grouse. The birds live high on the mountain where it is covered by snow most of the year. I met up with Tony Mong, a Wyoming Game & Fish wildlife biologist, who helped me locate the lek. The road to the lek was still partially closed due to heavy snow. The plan was to set up a photo blind and come back the next morning. However, just after a quarter of the way to the lek, we had to turn around because it started snowing so heavily we couldn’t see anything in front of us. Tony...
read moreIn the rough terrace of the Western Oklahoma live Lesser Prairie Chicken
March 28 – April 1 My trip started in Oklahoma to photograph Lesser Prairie Chicken. Over the years of photographing the birds, I’ve come to appreciate the rough terrain of the open country in the western Oklahoma panhandle where Lesser Prairie Chickens live. Sue, who has become a good friend over the years, has a large flock of Lesser Prairie Chickens at her ranch. That’s where I spent the next 5 days photographing Lesser Prairie Chickens – I hope to introduce more in my book about her passion and her efforts to save these birds. Three years ago I ripped my (expensive)...
read more3-Week Journey …
For some time I’d been wanting to shoot additional images I felt needed to tell a better story of the birds, including habitat images and environmental issues. So, on March 28, I embarked a 3-week trip (20 days to be exact – the path indicated by the blue line on the map) In essence, it was some of the most intense photo shooting I’ve ever done. But it also was the most incredible 20 days. During this 3-week trip, I traveled over 5,000 miles, encountered 4 blizzards, lost one of my photo blinds (I had to leave it behind in Wyomying because it was frozen solid on the ground), had...
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