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Rock Ptarmigan — printable fact sheet
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Rock Ptarmigan
Lagopus muta
Lagopus muta changes plumage three times a year, not twice — a white winter coat, a mottled grey-brown spring plumage, and a browner summer one — so that a bird sitting still is almost always the exact colour of the ground beneath it as the snowline retreats up the mountain. The…
Did you know?
- The Rock Ptarmigan is the official bird of Nunavut, Canada, and was featured on the Icelandic one-króna coin.
- Ptarmigan can see ultraviolet, and their white plumage is UV-reflective while snow is not always as uniform, which may mean a ptarmigan is more conspicuous to a raptor's UV-sensitive eye than it appears to ours. The Japanese population, the raicho or thunderbird, is a protected national natural monument revered as a sacred bird, and it now numbers only around 2,000. Ptarmigan escape by walking and freezing rather than flying, holding absolutely still until a predator is metres away, then bursting up with a loud cackling call.
What I learned
Draw the rock ptarmigan
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