The Bird with the Silent P

A Feathered Friend of the Cascades

Several weekends ago, we ventured up to Cascade Pass in North Cascades National Park, where we encountered spectacular fall foliage and hoards of people. The highlight for me was anything but showy. High up on the Sahale Arm amid the rocks, lichens, and ground hugging vegetation, I saw three white-tailed ptarmigan.

A member of the chicken clan, like their fellow Cascades’ relatives, sooty and dusky grouse, white-tailed ptarmigan are not your neighbor’s chicken. They spend their entire lives in subalpine and alpine zones, superbly evolved for the challenges of snow and cold. Perhaps best known is their seasonal change from spotted black and brown in summer to pure white in winter. My guess is that I have walked by them many times, not seeing them as they blend into their surroundings. When we saw them the other day, they were in the process of reclothing themselves in winter white so stood out better against their background, which also gave us an opportunity to hear their rather endearing plaintive coos, too.

Above you can see their other splendid adaptation to an alpine setting. Their feathered legs and feet, which allow them to walk across snow, as if wearing snowshoes, instead of flying, benefits the birds because walking requires less energy than flight. (Another bird shares this trait, snowy owls, though ornithologists typically note that the adaptation is to keep the bird’s feet warm.) Curiously, some people rejected the idea that feathered feet provided ptarmigan with snowshoe-like capabilities. In a 1974 review of Beatrice Willard’s and Ann Zwinger’s book Land Above the Trees: A Guide to American Tundra, ornithologist Elizabeth S. Austin chastised their information about birds writing: “They perpetuate the old children’s book error of ptarmigan feet being feathered for warmth and to furnish snowshoes.”

If you are not aware Land Above the Trees, it is a classic of natural history, clearly (in both senses) written by two people who had spent years exploring the high country and noting the distinct features of this often overlooked ecosystem. It’s not a page turner but should be a necessary book in anyone’s library who loves tundra. In 1992, I was lucky enough to spend a week in the field with Bettie. I still treasure the passion and knowledge she bestowed (as well as her generous note in my copy of LATT encouraging my nascent interest in paying attention) for one of my favorite ecosystems. When I read Ms. Austin’s comments, I had to laugh, knowing that if Bettie had written it, the observation about ptarmigans was sure to be correct.

I simply included this shot because I am pretty proud of how it came out!

Perhaps, not surprisingly, people who have long spent time with ptarmigan have noted the snowshoe effect. According to Tom Thornton, Professor of Environment and Society at University of Alaska Southeast, Tlingit hunters he knows observed this capability for both white-tailed and willow ptarmigan. As I have written before, western scientists are often catching up with Indigenous people in what they know about the natural world. They are also beginning to recognize that they should have long listened to and learned from traditional ecological knowledge.

Some people have certainly attributed far fetched ideas about what animals or plants can and cannot do but I also know that the natural world is filled with far more wonder than we can possibly imagine, or observe. In the 3.4 billion years or so that life has been evolving on Earth, there has been enough time for uncountable permutations and adaptations to the many vagaries of a complex world where change begets change, ultimately leading to the stunningly beautiful, diverse, and astounding array of life on this, the third rock from the sun.

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Word of the Week - Ptarmigan - According to W.P. Lockwood in the far-too-little-read journal Scottish Gaelic Studies, ptarmigan comes from the Scottish Gaelic tàrmachan, which means “‘grumbler, croaker’ or the like.” In 1684, Scottish antiquarian Robert Sibbald added the silent P, in allusion to pteron, meaning wing (most famously in the name pterodactyl), though one writer thinks it was done to make the word look more scientific. By the way, according to the authoritative Birds of the World the plural of ptarmigan is ptarmigan, though I could find no reason why.

November 18, 2023 - 2 to 4PM - I will participate once again in the Phinney Center’s Holiday Bookfest. Always a fun way to begin spending big bucks on books for the upcoming holidays, the event features a host of splendid writers including Erica Bauermeister, Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Ken Jennings, and me and Liz Nesbitt.