Willow Ptarmigan Alberta

[Whopperman]

It's the size you mention that bothers me, because actually, they are a small grouse size.
Here's an old picture of a young H4831, with three ptarmigan I shot in northern BC.

how old is this picture cause it looks like you have the same shirt on. If so I would like to know the manufacturers name on the label. That is one tough shirt.

 

[H4831]

how old is this picture cause it looks like you have the same shirt on. If so I would like to know the manufacturers name on the label. That is one tough shirt.

Hate to disappoint, but red was always my favourite color and that style of wool shirt was always a favourite winter shirt. I've had a few of them.

 

[H4831]

Sure hard to distinguish different types, or more particularilly, between willow and rock ptarmigan. In Google it says the rock variety always stay in the mountains. In the general area a hundred or so miles north of Germansen Landing in northern BC, they are, or used to be common and in good flocks. A son and I have hunted them in late August in the valleys of the mountains. They were changing color, so hard to distinguish by that method.
I have also been in the area in January and there were flocks in the range of fifty, wintering several miles from the mountains.
About the heaviest concentration of ptarmigan I have seen was in the extreme NW of BC, on the road that runs from Haines Alaska, to Haines Junction, Yukon.
Where are you Ted? What kind of ptarmigan are these?

 

[Bland]

As the temperatures drop so do the ptarmigan. They hang out along the lake edges during winter and higher in the alpine in the summer in Highway 16 country in BC. Longer season here as well. Tough walking too.