EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Ptarmigan on the North Slope

Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus), Family Phasianidae
North Slope, Alaska

Explanation:  It is early spring on the North Slope of Alaska, just a few miles south of the settlement of Deadhorse.  This is a cold, windswept landscape sandwiched between the Arctic Ocean coastline to the north and the Brooks Range to the south.  Out on the wide plains of this North Slope are dots of white and the echoes of a strange, gurgling, laughing call fading in and out on the winds.  

These are Willow Ptarmigans, denizens of this land of white and cold.  Now in their spring molt, their all-white winter plumage is being replaced.  Their heads and necks have now molted into the brown they will eventually fully wear to blend into the tawny tundra colors once the ice and snows have briefly melted.  

It is a critical matter of timing to retain the snow-white as long as possible but then become the dirt-brown, both plumages for masterful camouflage.   If the snows melt early or if their molt is timed wrong, whether white on dark or dark on white, they will become far more visible to the Rough-legged Hawks and Eagles and Gyrfalcons that patrol these habitats.  

The dots of white are Willow Ptarmigan, roughly spaced
for establishing nesting territories, male calling stations,
or feeding territories.

 
The bright red eye combs of the male, pictured in this week's main photo above, can be concealed or raise during territorial assertion or during breeding, so it serves the dual (and duel) purpose of intra-specific aggression and mate-attraction.