Behold! The Prairie Chicken

The Conservation Fund recently featured this video on their Web site in a piece about their work saving land for the Greater Prairie-Chicken. Who knew this bird was so beloved in American culture? And so quirky!

“Many Native American tribes perform prairie chicken dances, Laura Ingalls Wilder mentions them more than once in her Little House on the Prairie series and then there’s the world’s largest prairie chicken—a 13-foot tall statue—in the town of Rothsay, the self-proclaimed prairie chicken capital of Minnesota. There’s a prairie chicken capital of the world, too: Cassoday, Kansas. Prairie chicken festivals are held throughout the Midwest, perhaps the biggest is the annual Central Wisconsin Prairie Chicken Festival.”

There’s also a video of a Native American prairie chicken dance and information about why the prairie chicken’s numbers have fallen to near extinction. And if you fall in love with this bird, as apparently many people have, you can even get a desktop wallpaper! Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by gmcphee.