Based on the book
The American Prairie Chicken
by Mary Adrian
Retold by 3-V Class
The sanctuary is a good place for her to live because the grass is tall, and her brown, black, and white feathers that look like bars help her blend in with the grass. This way she can hide from her enemies. It also provides seeds for her to eat.
She has seen some new chickens on the grounds in the past few months. They are probably the ones that came from Kansas. Mr. Simpson, the conservation officer, thought they needed prairie chickens from another place because with all the interbreeding, the males that were hatched weren't able to make babies. Maybe Prairie Chicken will choose one of the new males to mate with.
The cocks are there. Each one of the fifty males had gotten up before sunrise, and flown to his courting station. Each bird has his own area of the courting ground. He has been stomping it down and making the ground hard since November. He does this so that when he does his mating dance, and pats the ground, the stomping will be heard by the females.
Sometimes the rooster has to protect his territory from another rooster that has no territory. Prairie Chicken sees one of these fights as she peeks out of the grass.
Just as one cock starts to do his dance, another, younger cock, challenges the old one to his territory. With his pinnate feathers raised, and his eyes snapping, the older bird rushes toward the younger one. He doesn't want anyone stealing his territory. The two stand beak to beak ready to fight. They separate, cackle loudly, and seesaw back and forth. They leap into the air and use their wings and feet to strike out at one another. This continues for several minutes, when the older rooster is finally able to pluck a feather out of the other's neck. The fight is over when the younger one leaves the area.
This sight has frightened Prairie Chicken. She is not sure that she is ready to deal with these males, but she continues to watch.
One male begins his dance. He puts his head down low, spreads his tail feathers, and drops his wings so that they brush against the ground, and runs a few steps forward. He pauses, and begins stamping on the ground. Jerking violently he makes a booming noise by letting the air out of the orange air sacs that are on the side of his throat. His orange eyebrows really show up when he does this. He continues to pat the ground, fill up his air sacs, and boom getting faster and faster, and louder and louder trying to impress the watching females.
Each morning, for the next three days, she returns to the courting grounds and watches through the grass. Finally on the third day, Prairie Chicken finds the perfect mate. Both parties are agreeable and they begin their family.
Now it is time for Prairie Chicken to build her nest. She knows that it will be up to her since her mate will not be around to help with the chicks. She goes out into the tall grass to find the perfect place. She wants a place where the water will drain and the grass is tall enough to protect her and her nest. After a day of searching all over the sanctuary, Prairie Chicken finds the perfect place.
She begins the job of making her nest. First, she scratches the soil and dead grass to form a bowl. Then Prairie Chicken sits down and wiggles around to make sure it suits her. She brings dead grass and leaves to line the nest. Finally, she plucks her breast feathers and lines the nest to make it soft.
The nest is made. Now it is time to lay the eggs. Prairie Chicken lays one egg each day, with a day of rest in between. It will take Prairie Chicken two weeks to lay twelve eggs. She doesn't leave her nest very much since she doesn't want that pesky pheasant that she has seen around bothering her nest. She knows that other prairie chickens have had trouble with pheasants using their nests. Those sneaky pheasants look for nests that are already made to lay their eggs in, then go off and let a prairie chicken hatch their eggs without them having to go to the trouble of sitting on the nest themselves.
Prairie Chicken is tired of sitting all the time, but it will be worth it all when her babies are hatched. She knows that the babies will have to use their egg tooth to get out of their shells. It has been 21 days now. They should be hatching soon.
It is late afternoon, and Prairie Chicken is getting restless. Strange things have been going on in the nest. She thinks one of the eggs is hatching. She decides it is time to leave the nest for a little bit to eat and drink.
It has happened! One chick has made its way out of the egg! The chick looks beautiful! It is small and has fluffy yellow feathers that are mottled with brown. When the chick grows up, Prairie Chicken knows it will be 18 inches long and it will weigh two pounds. This first chick is a male. When he grows up, he will have an orange sack on his neck. He will have brownish yellow feathers with white on top and dark stripes. He will have barred feathers down his stomach. When all the babies are grown, they will have feathers down their legs and on their feet. The feathers will help them keep warm in the winter.The males will grow head feathers and have orange eyebrows.
Soon the others are hatched. Prairie Chicken gathers them under her wings to keep the chicks warm and dry. Before long, the chicks are coming out from under their mother and sliding down her back. Prairie Chicken decides her brood is ready to leave the nest forever.
She gets up out of the nest, shakes her feathers, and clucks to her chicks to follow her as she leaves the nest. The family is off in search of food. The chicks find weed stocks, flowers, and bugs which they pick up in their tiny beaks and gobble up. They also catch grasshoppers, which they must tear apart to eat.
As they eat, Prairie Chicken keeps a watchful eye for predators such as pheasants, foxes, wolves, hawks, snakes, skunks, minks, raccoons, dogs, cats, coyotes, people and oppossums. It's a good thing too, because as she watches she feels the dark shadow of a hawk as it swoops down where one of the chicks is feeding. Prairie Chicken immediately makes a warning noise and the chicks quickly take shelter by scrunching down in the grass. The hawk does not see them this time, and it flies away.
The young chicks grow rapidly. They flap their tiny new wings as they run along the ground. They are discovering that their wings will hold them up in the air. As they practice doing this they peep excitedly trying to get their mother's attention. Prairie Chicken clucks how proud she is of them.
A second later Prairie Chicken is flying into cat's face. The cat is so startled that he drops the chick. It scurries into the grass away from the terrible cat. Prairie Chicken wants to make sure the little one has time to get away, so she distracts the cat by acting like she hurt her wing when she attacked him. She lets her wing drag on the ground and limps off taking the cat away from her babies. He follows her thinking that she would be a much better catch than the chick. Prairie Chicken continues to lead him away from the youngsters until she feels they are a safe distance away, and then she flies off with a whirr of wings.
When she feels it is safe, she returns to her brood where they are still hiding, and calls to them that it is safe. They scurry to her.
The youngsters continue to grow until by midsummer they are fully feathered, and are looking like grown-up birds. They eat fewer bugs. Instead they eat seed of grasses and weeds.
Prairie Chicken has taken good care of her brood. It is time to let them go off on their own. She is sad to see this, but she knows that she must. It is according to the cycles of life.
