Alaskan ptarmigan

[Richard Flanders]

In case some have never seen a ptarmigan. I took these this morning on a trip to the drill site. They're all over our roads lately and are taking on winter plumage already...NNNOOOOO!! It's tooooo early! These are zoomed digitals so are not overly sharp but I fixed them enough to be ok. They're very reluctant to fly as their chief predators are raptors, so they just run around a lot and make for good close photos.

[Autumn Daze]

Beautiful bird's Rich...Always wanted to hunt Ptarmigan. Thanks for the great photo's.....

[Rod N. Gunn]

My Springer could make them fly! Thanks for sharing Rich.