Sometimes mocked, ptarmigan are worthy of being Alaska's state bird

My first-hand knowledge of ptarmigan came from living in a village in Alaska's Interior where birds along the road were called "stupid chickens." Since then, I have heard all three species of ptarmigan called snow chickens.

The Alaska town of Chicken allegedly got its name due to the difficulty in spelling ptarmigan. In fact, the name "Ptarmigan" was suggested when the town was incorporated in 1902, but no one could agree on the correct spelling, so the locals decided on "Chicken."

Why does the chicken cross the road? Because it can't spell ptarmigan.

In grade school, I questioned the choice of willow ptarmigan as Alaska's state bird. With my limited knowledge, the selection seemed as ridiculous as Ben Franklin's suggestion that the turkey should be our national bird. "Poultry does not evoke majesty," I thought at the time.

When they peck for gravel near or on a road, the birds appear as domestic as a farm animal kept for meat or eggs. But I was told that when I encountered them in the wild, especially in winter, they would appear like a ball of snow.

We'd been hunting for two hours when I first heard a clucking sound. I searched the banks. "Did you hear that?" I whispered to my hunting partner, Steve.

"That's a ptarmigan," he whispered back.

The dogs had heard the clucking as well, but the wind was wrong for them to scent the birds. We scanned the area of the creek. I'd heard that Native Americans found it impossible to see the first ships that "discovered" America. Since they had never seen ships before, their eyes were unaccustomed to what they were seeing.

I don't know if this is true, but I wondered if I would be able to see the ptarmigan. As many times as I had seen them along the road, I had never seen the camouflaged birds where they lived. If modern science and myth have the ability to describe ptarmigan as they exist in verdant fields or intense cold as changing, molting, invisible creatures, I'd somehow missed it.

The clucking was near — yet impossible to track.

Then Winchester's body halted in a rocking step that marked the presence of birds. No doubt remained that they were within yards and in sight. I followed the line from his nose to the bank where a frozen creek gave way to the mottled pattern of rock and willow.

The scenery looked like a Bev Doolittle painting. I remembered it always took me a few seconds to find a herd of horses running through rocks and snow in Doolittle's optical illusions; it took me much longer to find a wild bird across the creek.

The wind blew snow along the ground as the eyes and pinto-head of a ptarmigan took shape in the white haze. I watched the single bird with a focused disbelief. Then, to my surprise, the snow on the bank shifted, and another bird appeared.

Before I was prepared, the sky filled with ptarmigan, and I fired my shotgun just once. Moments later, I sat in the snow holding a willow ptarmigan in my hands. I never heard my gun fire, Steve's shot, or the commotion of the dog finding his bird. The whole world had gone white and was as invisible as the birds had been the moment before.

To hold the warm bird and later see the contents of its crop and cook the breasts over rice for dinner, I realized how little a ptarmigan is compared to a chicken. Ptarmigan that inhabit the high country are forever captured in mountain light, and the light changes the way the bird looks so that nothing in its range is commonplace or routine. They do not taste like chicken.

Many people consider ptarmigan stupid because they don't move and allow a hunter who doesn't wait for a flush an easy shot. However, their lack of movement is not due to stupidity; camouflage is their best protection from predators.

Consider their finer, more delicate heads and beaks and their dress, which is as colorful or spare as the country in its season. It gives them grace and beauty a free-range chicken has never known.

There is no definitive source of information on Alaska ptarmigan — no "Secret Lives of Ptarmigan" book. Even though we live in a state with all three species — rock, willow and white-tailed — we have only recently embarked on programs to survey their statewide populations and determine information about their age and sex across their ranges through the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's small-game program.

My first contribution was to send wings and tails from harvested birds to our state small game biologists. This collection program provides valuable information about the harvest composition (age, sex, species, and area harvested) across the state.

A few years ago, Steve and I volunteered for the spring breeding survey, which runs mid-April to late May. By this time, I had learned about territorial displays of male ptarmigan, but what I read in no way prepared me for the shrieking calls and display flights.

The male willow ptarmigan never looks better than when he's decked out in his cape of chestnut-red feathers courting plumage. I watched a male swoop into another male's territory with the fierceness of a hawk only to land and strut about like a peacock.

In the spring, the reproductive urge makes male ptarmigan less tolerant of each other. They may later help care for the chicks, but during the breeding season, males seem only to care about guarding their territory and keep an almost cartoonish angry bird eye out for competing males.

I'd never had a bird look at me like I was coming after his girl, but it's a look I will not soon forget.

In its home territory, ptarmigan experience the tragedies and triumphs of daily life as well as eat, sleep, play and breed. It took spending time with them in their range — years of hunting, harvest, and hanging out — to gain more than a sporting interest in the bird and to realize ptarmigan are much more than a game bird meant for the table.

They are a color-changing, feather-footed, acrobatic love-making, tenacious chicken worthy of being our state bird.

Christine Cunningham of Soldotna is a lifetlong Alaskan and avid hunter. On alternate weeks, she writes about Alaska hunting. Contact Christine at cunningham@yogaforduckhunters.com.