Spotted: A Ptarmigan!

If you remember from the blog post about the town of Chicken, it was named that because the miners couldn't spell Ptarmigan (pronounced tar-mee-gun.)  This was a very prolific bird that was easy to catch and was used much like chicken by the miners.  I think that in the US, Prairie Chickens probably served the pioneers in the same way. Ptarmigan are members of the grouse family.

It turns out that there are several species of Ptarmigan.  They are one of the many species that change colors with the season, being brown in the summer, and turning white in the winter.

Despite  all the hype about them, I never saw one.  I asked the young teenager at Chicken about them, and she said they were everywhere, you just had to get off the beaten path.  I thought we were off the beaten path!   And each time I asked someone about then, they said they were all over.  "How big are they?" I asked, and got many different hand gestures, some showing them little, like a robin,  some big like a turkey!

I always have kept my eye peeled for one.  And then, a song began to go around in my head.  It was the song
about Noah's Ark sung in the1960's by the Irish Rovers, called "The Unicorn." It was such a famous folk song about wanting to make sure Noah put a Unicorn on the Ark.  And, I adapted the song to fit the Ptarmigan, which to my mind, was as illusive to find as a unicorm.  So, the song goes something like this.

There are green alligators and long -necked geese,
Some humpy- backed camels and chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants
But sure as you're born,
Don't you forget my Uniicorn.


Only my last two lines are

But sure as you can
Don't you forget my Ptarmigan.

And then, I spotted one.  It was while we were driving up to the Edith Cravell Mountain.  It was high up the mountain, running quickly along the side of the road  And, I thought I saw the rustle of another one!  "Ptarmigan!!!", I shouted, which I immediately regretted, since John jumped, when he really needed to be concentrating on this narrow road.

He threw on the brakes, but it was gone.  "That doesn't count." he said.  "First of all, I didn't see it, and second of all, you didn't get a picture of it."

Well, I saw it with my own two eyes, and I no longer have to wonder what they look like.  They are about the size of a small chicken all right, and have these big tufts around their feet, which probably help them in the snow in the winter.  So, I got my Ptarmigan. (These, as you can guess, are not my pictures, except that the winter one was taken at a museum in Dawson Creek)