How long do ptarmigan live

For northern tribes and peoples, ptarmigan meat is an important part of daily life and culture. In many areas, the local government regulates hunting to protect the populations of the birds.

Habitat destruction also poses a danger, and climate change is altering the habitats in the northern hemisphere every year. No, ptarmigans do not make good pets.

They are wild animals, and are adapted to an incredibly cold environment. It is also illegal to own ptarmigans as pets in many places.

The only zoos that readily house this bird are those in rather cold climates. Because they are relatively small, and usually live on the ground, creating a habitat for them is quite easy.

Zoos provide them with low vegetation to hide in, similar to what they find in the wild. Their diet of plants is easy to replicate, and zookeepers can give them pelleted feed to ensure all their nutritional needs are met. Outside of breeding season, these birds are usually solitary.

They spend most of their time searching for food and hiding from predators. As the breeding season rolls around, all the ptarmigans migrate to seasonal breeding grounds.

Once they arrive, males defend small territories, often fighting with other males. Females wander through these territories until they find a potential suitor. Once she finds a good mate, the female ptarmigan builds her nest and lays her eggs. While she incubates the eggs, the male protects her from predators and rival pairs. In North America, ptarmigans of one kind or another live in almost every arctic and alpine habitat, as long as vegetation is present.

The three species may breed on the same mountain but not in the same habitat. In summer, Willow Ptarmigans inhabit treeline areas, arctic valleys, and coastal tundra where vegetation is relatively lush and tall. They like moist areas, such as pond edges, streamside thickets, and marshy tundra, which they sometimes share with waterfowl and shorebirds.

Recently, Willow Ptarmigans have been extending their range northward into parts of the Arctic formerly inhabited only by Rock Ptarmigans. Rock Ptarmigans live at higher elevations and latitudes, where their typical habitat is rather dry and supports sparse, very low vegetation.

In the southern and western parts of their North American range, they also frequent low-shrub vegetation, more typical of Willow Ptarmigan haunts. White-tailed Ptarmigans are strictly alpine. They inhabit the highest peaks and share rocky slopes and high meadows with mountain sheep, mountain goats, and hoary marmots. They raise their young in moist pockets among cliffs and snowfields. At the northern end of their range, White-tailed Ptarmigans breed at elevations ranging from to 1 m.

In the southern Rockies, they rarely summer below 3 m. In late fall, ptarmigans seek more protected areas, moving down slopes or southward into the taller vegetation of dense shrubs and forested areas. Willow Ptarmigans may move well into the treed zone. The winter daily schedule consists of feeding by day and roosting under shrubs or in snow burrows at night and during extreme weather.

The quality and depth of snow are important factors influencing survival. Snow depth determines what food will be available. Along with snow hardness, it also determines whether suitable roosting conditions exist to protect the ptarmigans from cold winds and how effectively such predators as foxes, lynx, wolves, and martens can pursue the birds.

Unique characteristics To people of the North, ptarmigans are a source of food as well as companionship through fair and foul weather. The closeness of this relationship shines through in the legends, toys, and art of all arctic peoples.

White-tailed Ptarmigans, and the other two species in the southern portion of their range, have only to go a few hundred metres or, at most, a few kilometres to reach dependable winter feeding areas. But the Rock and Willow ptarmigans of the far North probably migrate long distances.

Rock Ptarmigans, particularly those from northern Ellesmere Island, are the champion nomads of the grouse world, and their migrations can exceed km. Like other grouse, ptarmigans are mostly plant eaters. In summer, they sample the leaves, buds, catkins, flowers, seed capsules, bulblets, and berries of a wide variety of tundra plants.

They also consume mosses and supplement their menu with insects and spiders when these are available. They have an uncanny knack of choosing the most nutritious material available, a necessity for meeting their high energy demands.

Chicks need a high-protein diet for rapid growth. After eating the yolk sac from which they hatched, they begin to pick up a variety of objects, especially caterpillar, other invertebrates, flowers, and seeds.

Winter is the critical time, as the choice and quantity of food are reduced to the few plants found above the snow or in windswept places. Ptarmigans eat the seeds, buds, and twigs of low willows, alders, and dwarf birches. To consume the catkins and buds of other trees and shrubs, Willow Ptarmigans have learned to perch, somewhat unsteadily, in thin branches. By contrast, Rock Ptarmigans are adept at scratching in shallow snow to reach buried vegetation such as the ground-hugging purple saxifrage.

They also take advantage of feeding craters made by caribou, muskoxen, and arctic hares. White-tailed Ptarmigans supplement their diet with the needles and buds of spruces, pines, and firs.

Each species has evolved subtle differences in bill size and shape related to its main winter food. Ptarmigans are generally considered monogamous, or having only one mate at a time. However, when Rock Ptarmigan populations are exceptionally high, cocks have been observed mating with two, and occasionally three, hens that nested on their territories.

This is called polygyny. At the beginning of incubation, or keeping the eggs warm until they hatch, male ptarmigans guard their females. However they gradually lose interest, leaving their mates to complete incubation and rear the brood on their own.

Male Willow Ptarmigans, the only family-conscious fathers of the grouse group, are an exception. They guard their mates closely throughout incubation and habitually help in rearing the young.

A ptarmigan begins its life in a shallow nest depression sparsely lined with grasses, lichens, leaves, and feathers. Warmed by the featherless abdominal brood patches of the hen, the downy chicks hatch approximately three weeks after the clutch of five to 14 spotted and blotched eggs is completed. Although all chicks usually hatch within a few hours, hatching may take as long as a day.

During this time, the hen keeps the brood warm, but the youngsters emerge from under her breast for short periods.

Then, while making low vocalizations, the hen leads the chicks, each weighing about 15 g, from the nest. At first the family hunts for food in the vicinity of the nest, but it then ranges over an increasingly large area and can travel considerable distances in search of suitable food.

If nesting is successful, hens raise only one brood per year. If they lose their eggs while still laying or during early incubation, they may renest. The chicks grow amazingly quickly. Unsteady when hatched, they can scurry like mice within a few days and fly clumsily when about a week old. By autumn, the young are almost adult size and are able to fend for themselves.

They often form small flocks with adults, and species can mix as small flocks join to become larger ones. A fair amount of calling and displaying can take place, but this lacks the intensity and vigour of spring displays. Ptarmigans as well as snowshoe hares, Ruffed and Spruce Grouse, lemmings, lynx, red and arctic foxes, and Snowy Owls are animals that undergo cyclical population fluctuations. No single explanation applies to all cases, but weather conditions and quality and quantity of food appear to be important factors contributing to the rising and falling in population size at fairly regular intervals.

In North America, ptarmigans live in areas rarely visited by humans, but that is changing rapidly. Consequently, current conservation measures, which are mostly precautionary in nature—such as hunting regulations that protect breeding birds and set daily bag limits—or respond to local problems, may no longer suffice. Despite the relative remoteness of ptarmigan ranges, poor land-use practices have already degraded or destroyed some of their habitat.

Reindeer have severely overgrazed coastal tundra in western Alaska and near the mouth of the Mackenzie River. Tundra fires set by people have increased, particularly near the treeline, temporarily reducing the amount and variety of available food, but also stimulating the growth of palatable shrubs used by ptarmigans in winter.

Although oil exploration activities seem to have little negative effect on ptarmigans, not all development is harmless. Any land use that leads to progressive erosion, destruction of vegetation, pollution of soil, water, and air, or melting of permafrost can endanger ptarmigans and other wildlife. In recent years, several new threats have emerged.

So far, ecotourism does not appear to have caused a measurable decline in ptarmigan populations, but it has inadvertently contributed to the destruction of their often fragile habitat. Long-range movement of pollutants in the atmosphere is becoming more serious and is likely to be detrimental to many arctic species, including ptarmigans.

And no one knows yet how global warming and ozone depletion will affect wildlife. Although all three ptarmigan species have been studied by scientists, their levels of tolerance to human-induced changes remain largely unknown, as do many other aspects of their biology. Audubon Field Guide, Willow Ptarmigan. Audubon Field Guide, Rock Ptarmigan. Audubon Field Guide, White-tailed Ptarmigan. All About Birds, Rock Ptarmigan.

All About Birds, Willow Ptarmigan. All About Birds, White-tailed Ptarmigan. Life histories of North American gallinaceous birds. Dover Publications, New York. Godfrey, W. The birds of Canada. Revised edition. National Museums of Canada, Ottawa. Johnsgard, P. Grouse and quails of North America. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska. Reilly, E. The Audubon illustrated handbook of American birds. Snyder, L. Arctic birds of Canada.

University of Toronto Press, Toronto. Terre, J. The Audubon Society encyclopedia of North American birds. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. All rights reserved. The Northern Leopard Frog Lithobates pipiens is named for its leopard-like spots across its back and sides. Historically, these frogs were harvested for food frog legs and are still used today for dissection practice in biology class.

Northern Leopard Frogs are about the size of a plum, ranging from 7 to 12 centimetres. They have a variety of unique colour morphs, or genetic colour variations. They can be different shades of green and brown with rounded black spots across its back and legs and can even appear with no spots at all known as a burnsi morph. They have white bellies and two light coloured dorsal back ridges.

Another pale line travels underneath the nostril, eye and tympanum, ending at the shoulder. The tympanum is an external hearing structure just behind and below the eye that looks like a small disk. Black pupils and golden irises make up their eyes. They are often confused with Pickerel Frogs Lithobates palustris ; whose spots are more squared then rounded and have a yellowish underbelly.

Male frogs are typically smaller than the females. Their average life span is two to four years in the wild, but up to nine years in captivity. Tadpoles are dark brown with tan tails. Lampreys are an amazing group of ancient fish species which first appeared around million years ago. This means they evolved millions of years before the dinosaurs roamed the earth. There are about 39 species of lamprey currently described plus some additional landlocked populations and varieties. In general, lamprey are one of three different life history types and are a combination of non-parasitic and parasitic species.

Non-parasitic lamprey feed on organic material and detritus in the water column. Parasitic lamprey attach to other fish species to feed on their blood and tissues. Most, 22 of the 39 species, are non-parasitic and spend their entire lives in freshwater. The remainder are either parasitic spending their whole life in freshwater or, parasitic and anadromous. Anadromous parasitic lampreys grow in freshwater before migrating to the sea where they feed parasitically and then migrate back to freshwater to spawn.

The Cowichan Lake lamprey Entosphenus macrostomus is a freshwater parasitic lamprey species. It has a worm or eel-like shape with two distinct dorsal fins and a small tail. It is a slender fish reaching a maximum length of about mm. When they are getting ready to spawn they shrink in length and their dorsal fins overlap. Unlike many other fish species, when lampreys are getting ready to spawn you can tell the difference between males and females. Females develop fleshy folds on either side of their cloaca and an upturned tail.

Young Downy chicks leave nest with adult female within a day after hatching. Diet Mostly buds, leaves, and seeds. Nesting Male defends territory in spring with conspicuous display flight: flaps very rapidly, glides high, then flutters to ground while giving staccato call.

Climate threats facing the Rock Ptarmigan Choose a temperature scenario below to see which threats will affect this species as warming increases. More News. Snow Caves Keep Ptargimans Cozy on Cold Winter Nights Podcast When temperatures plummet, some northern birds create burrows to take advantage of snow's natural insulation.

These Birds Like to Wear Makeup News Only a handful of species in the world exhibit a rare behavior that researchers call 'avian cosmetics. Explore Similar Birds. The Bird Guide Adopt a Bird. White-tailed Ptarmigan Latin: Lagopus leucura. Willow Ptarmigan Latin: Lagopus lagopus. These birds need your help. Get Audubon in Your Inbox Let us send you the latest in bird and conservation news. Email address. Find Audubon Near You Visit your local Audubon center, join a chapter, or help save birds with your state program.

Explore the Network. Become an Audubon Member Membership benefits include one year of Audubon magazine and the latest on birds and their habitats. Join Today. Spread the word. Stay abreast of Audubon Our email newsletter shares the latest programs and initiatives.

May become locally scarce near Arctic settlements, but still very common over vast areas of northern wilderness.