One thing about white-tails -- after they scare the bejesus out of you, they stick around to watch. Willow and rock ptarmigan fly just for the sake of being in the air, but white-tailed ptarmigan handle the cold by moving as little as possible. The winter range of these small birds may be less than a mile.
White-tailed ptarmigan are true alpine birds, spending their entire life above timberline near the windswept ridges throughout Southcentral Alaska. Feathers around their nostrils warm the fridge winter air they breathe.
I travel in the high country of the Denali quite often during summer and winter but seldom see these little birds, which are easily distinguished from rock and willow ptarmigan because the only black on them are their beaks and eyes.
They may return to the same wintering sites year after year, and they show affinity to nesting sites. Some live to be quite old; one male in Colorado was recorded to be 15 years old, though the average is likely to be closer to three.
Few predators target these ptarmigan -- gyr falcons and peregrines, foxes and weasels, and maybe the occasional wolverine. Because they spend much of the time sitting still and because for most of the season there are few marauders in the alpine country, they are very successful birds. They do lose about half of their nests to weasels and fox, but once the chicks are hatched, more than 65 percent make it to winter. Cold summer rains are their biggest threat.
Willow ptarmigan group in flocks numbering hundreds, as do rock ptarmigan. The most white-tailed ptarmigan I have seen in a group was 10 or 11.
I wonder how many flocks of white-tailed ptarmigan I have walked right by? It appears that the population is healthy and may be expanding; research suggests that they may be recent residents to Alaska and are continually moving further north.
They are certainly on the north side of the Alaska Range, and while I have not seen them in the Brooks Range, there are a few in the headwaters of the Salcha drainage, even though this is outside of their published range.
They could be vulnerable to overharvest as snowmobiles have the most mobility in the spring when the rest of nature is the least mobile. Also, the reluctance to fly that keeps them safe from traditional predators, makes them easy targets for late season hunters. However, most of the snowmobilers in alpine country are high-marking, not hunting.
The birds that startled me while I was marking trail refused to move any more than necessary. I walked after them, several times almost within touching distance. What if I were a fox? I know the leaders in my dog teams have caught several over the years; how do they survive?
I guess they go up -- in the Lower 48, they've been recorded above 12,000 feet.
If you want to see white-tailed ptarmigan, the Denali Highway is your best bet. The north side of Paxson Mountain and both sides of Amphitheater Pass (Maclaren Summit) have good resident populations that have remained intact for the past four decades.
Walk slowly checking the edges of rock piles and late melting snowfields. Nesting sites are usually on the shady side of a rock.
Summer plumage is mottled gray and brown; first-year birds will show some black on the edges of their outer two primary flight feathers. These young adults are less likely to nest, so if you see two or more of these young ones together, your odds of finding a nest are slim.
Count yourself lucky if you spot a white-tail; a true symbol of the alpine tundra.
John Schandelmeier of Paxson is a lifelong Alaskan and Bristol Bay commercial fisherman. A former champion of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, he was trail coordinator for this year's Quest and has written on the outdoors for several newspapers and magazines.
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