Thursday, May 23, 2013

Booming!

A booming we will go, a booming we will go, hi ho the derry-o, a booming we will go.

That just might be the theme song for prairie chickens each Spring as the males perform their mating ritual called booming. The male stomps his feet and lets out a booming sound from air sacs on each side of his neck.

Prairie chickens, while once plentiful on the open prairies, have dropped in significant numbers due to over-hunting and loss of habitat. The town of Rothsay, Minnesota bills itself as the Prairie Chicken Capital of the World and boasts it is the home of the largest prairie chicken in the world. If this statue is any indication, I can only imagine how beautiful these birds are in real life.

Booming Prairie Chicken - Rothsay, Minnesota

5 comments:

  1. LOL...I would love to see this ritual

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  2. So funny! I love the words 'Prairie Chicken'! It makes me smile. :)

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  3. The statue is hilarious. We went to a bird festival once in Burns Oregon and got to drive out to a sage grouse lek (what they called the sites where they mate) and watch and listen to the mating ritual. It was amazing. I guess they must be the same or similar bird, because they told us pretty much the same thing about their habitat.

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  4. I assume it's a Grouse of some kind. Hear them booming around here also. But that's a big chicken.

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