Bird-Lore
A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE
DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS
Official Organ of the Audubon Societies
| Vol. II | November—December, 1900 | No. 6 |
Photographing Ptarmigan
BY E. R. WARREN, Crested Butte. Colo.
With photographs from nature by the author*
UR White-tailed Ptarmigan, or 'Mountain Quail,' as it is
commonly called in this state, is a bird of such alpine
habitat that but few become acquainted with it, especially
in the summer season, when it lives at timber-line and
higher. In the winter it is somewhat better known, for
it then descends to the valleys, driven down by the storms
and deep snows, although, as far as I know, never below or out of
the snow. At this time they are very noticeable, that is, if one runs
across them, for they are pure white, excepting bills and eyes, which
are black. At all seasons, so far as I have observed, unless much
persecuted, they are fearless of man, and will allow one to approach
very closely, so closely that I have actually touched them.
The photographs from which the accompanying illustrations were
made were taken in the vicinity of Crested Butte, Gunnison county,
Colorado. The first of the birds in the summer plumage was taken
in 1899 at ^^ elevation of over ii,ooo feet, nearly but not quite tim-
ber-line, and in one of our high mountain basins. The birds were
in the habit of coming daily, at about noon, to a mining tunnel, for
the sake of drinking from a small stream of water which flowed from
the tunnel, probably the nearest water they could find. As long as
there is snow on the mountains the birds do not go for water. I
have seen them eat snow in the summer as well as in winter. There
- Mr. Warren's beautiful pictures illustrate perhaps more forcibly than any photographs Bird-Lore
has published the educational value of the camera in the study of birds in nature. Few ornithologists are privileged to see Ptarmigan in their haunts, and. with the exception of the Scottish species, they are never, we believe, confined in zoological gardens. But here we have a series of photographs, which not only gives an excellent idea of the appearance of these birds in life, but graphically demonstrates the im- portance of their marked seasonal changes in plumage, which are technically described by Dr. Dwight in the succeeding article.
