The prairies are a very important habitat for nesting birds, including shorebirds such as this Long-billed Curlew, which is an endangered species.
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While myself and a grad student were busy working in the field at the Rangeland Research Ranch near Brooks, Alberta, these birds were sure raising a little bit of a ruckus and worried about what we’d be doing to their little ones. Of course, the fieldwork we were doing was more to do with plants than these birds, but it was hard to ignore them. Especially when I had my Canon Rebel with a telephoto lens, and a dare to carefully get as close to them as I could without frightening them off.

Taken on the Mattheis Research Ranch (University of Alberta’s Rangeland Research Institute) near Brooks, AB, Canada on June 19, 2014, with my old Canon Rebel XS DSLR camera with a Canon EF 70-300 mm f/4-5.6 IS USM telephoto lens.