Sirli-lore 



A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

 DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of the Audubon Societies 



Vol. II 



December, 1900 



No. 6 



Photographing Ptarmigan 



BY E. R. WARREN, Crested Butte. Colo. 

 With photographs from nature by the author* 



UR White-tailed Ptarmigan, or 'Mountain Quail,' as it is 

 commonly called in this state, is a bird of such alpine 

 habitat that but few become acquainted with it, especially 

 in the summer season, when it lives at timber-line and 

 higher. In the winter it is somewhat better known, for 

 it then descends to the valleys, driven down by the storms 

 and deep snows, although, as far as I know, never below or out of 

 the snow. At this time they are very noticeable, that is, if one rung 

 across them, for they are pure white, excepting bills and eyes, which 

 are black. At all seasons, so far as I have observed, unless much 

 persecuted, they are fearless of man, and will allow one to approach 

 very closely, so closely that I have actually touched them. 



The photographs from which the accompanying illustrations were 

 made were taken in the vicinity of Crested Butte, Gunnison county, 

 Colorado. The first of the birds in the summer plumage was taken 

 in 1899 at an elevation of over ii,ooo feet, nearly but not quite tim- 

 ber-line, and in one of our high mountain basins. The birds were 

 in the habit of coming daily, at about noon, to a mining tunnel, for 

 the sake of drinking from a small stream of water which flowed from 

 the tunnel, probably the nearest water they could find. As long as 

 there is snow on the mountains the birds do not go for water. I 

 have seen them eat snow in the summer as well as in winter. There 



* Mr. Warren's beautiful pictures illustrate perhaps more forcibly than any photographs Bird-Lore 

 has published the educational value of the camera in the study of birds in nature. Few ornithologists 

 are privileged to see Ptarmigan in their haunts, and. with the exception of the Scottish species, they are 

 never, we believe, confined in zoological gardens. But here we have a series of photographs, which not 

 only gives an excellent idea of the appearance of these birds in life, but graphically demonstrates the im- 

 portance of their marked seasonal changes in plumage, which are technically described by Dr. Dwight 

 in the succeeding article. 



