We have monitored our Greater Prairie Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido pinnatus) lek every year since 2015, from mid-January to late May. There are three different ways that we monitor the lek: audio recorders, camera traps, and scan sampling. We place the audio recorder, and camera trap (trail cam) prior to surveys starting. Scan sampling is something that is carried out once a week. We typically have two science team members sitting in the prairie chicken blinds before first light waiting for the chickens to arrive. When they do, the scan sampling starts! In an instant the lek is filled with motion. It’s a flurry of wings and feathers as multiple prairie chickens come into view on the lek. Once there is sufficient light, we begin our scan survey, which lasts between 30 minutes and one hour. During the survey, every three minutes a scan is completed. We look across the lek recording the behavior that each individual is exhibiting when the scanner spots them. We are mainly looking at and recording the males behavior but we do document how many females are present when we see them on the lek. For each scan we record down how many individuals seen because one thing I have learned from our lek is that sometimes another prairie chicken will magically appear or one will find a depression to tuck down into and will pop up randomly. Some of the behaviors recorded are: booming, strutting, flutter jumps, nuptial bow, sparring, copulation, foraging, loafing, flying, and predation avoidance. My favorite part of surveying is when a male will be on one side of the lek and then run to challenge another male. It is amazing how fast the prairie chickens can be and it is very hilarious how they run. It makes me laugh every time!
Photo credits: Matt Urbanski Photo credits: Crane Trust Staff
Our greater prairie chicken lek monitoring began on January 15th. This year though is different from previous years. Our prairie chickens did not return to the lek they typically have used. This means we have now been led on a chicken chase! The science team has been tasked with locating where the prairie chickens have moved to. Good news though, we have seen greater prairie chickens so they have not left completely but have decided to find a new place to lek. Some of our efforts are to place additional acoustic recorders around areas where the habitat looks to be a great lekking location: shorter grass area with tallgrass nearby where the prairie chickens could hide. Each recorder is being placed at least 800 meters (~2624 feet) apart so there is reduced overlap in sounds that are detected by the acoustic recorders. The acoustic recorders will be deployed for approximately one week, after which SD cards will be replaced to review recordings and see if the search area can be refined. While we are chicken chasing, we are taking extra precaution to not disturb them and are using passive techniques outside of their typical daily lekking timeframe to work on locating them. Currently, we do not know why they moved their lek from the one they have been using since at least 2015, but we hope to find where they have moved to and see what the habitat looks like that they are now using. Any information that we can get will aid in further monitoring and management actions for future survey years. Until we find their lek…..we Chicken Chase!
Till next time!
Emma Richards
Lila O. Wilson Biological Monitoring Fellow
erichards@cranetrust.org
Photo credits #1: Crane Trust Staff
Photo credits #2-4: Matt Urbanski