by Frank Keim
Aqezaqezaqezaqezqzqzqzqzqz… Ever heard that sound? Sure you have. Just walk out in the tundra in spring, and I guarantee, if you listen hard enough, you’ll hear it.
Enter, two aspiring bird watchers. “Okay, now we’re in the tundra, and we hear it. So, what are we hearing? Did you remember your binoculars? No. Well, go back and get them.” Pause…
“You’re back. Good. Now take your binocs and scan the horizon. Can you see them? They look like little white snowballs skittering across the tundra.”
“Yah, tundra chickens.”
“Right, except those aren’t any old chickens. Those are Willow ptarmigan, what they call in the Y-K Delta, Aqesgiq, because of the imitative sound of their spring mating call. That’s what you’re hearing right now.”
“Alright, what next?”
“Well, watch them for a while and you might see some interesting action out there.”
If our new bird watching friends really do take the time, they would probably see some remarkable behavior between the male ptarmigan and a few passionately curious females that are quizzically checking him out.
They also might witness some very aggressive behavior on the part of the male if any other males happen to venture near the little bare patch on the tundra that he calls his own. And what they see might remind them of a bloody rooster fight they’d watched on TV.
If the bird watchers return the following day, they might see the ptarmigan mating game unfold even further. After frightening off his rivals, and with bright red nuptial “eyebrows” (also called combs) flashing at high speed, the male Aqesgiq begins to strut his stuff and flutter his brown-stained wings, chuckling for all he’s worth to attract the woman of his dreams over to his bare patch on the tundra so he can, you guessed it, make babies and quickly settle down to married life and all that means to a male ptarmigan.
Unlike the other two species of Alaska ptarmigan, the Aqesgiq is actually a pretty good husband and sticks around while his new wife builds her nest, then lays and incubates her 10 or more eggs. Hiding in a thicket near the nest, he will do whatever it takes to defend his spouse from attacks by gulls and jaegers. He flies viciously at them, sometimes even knocking them over, to prevent them from getting the eggs of his future progeny. One was once even seen frontally attacking a grizzly bear that stumbled on his mate’s nest. If you chase after the chicks and try to pick them up, prepare for a fierce flying attack yourself. This almost happened to me in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but I escaped just in time.
The male Aqesgiq is loyal to his family even if his mate is somehow killed while still brooding her eggs. He will take over the responsibility of not only incubating the eggs, but also of tending to the young until they’re old enough to care for themselves.
These were probably some of the reasons why this member of the grouse family was chosen to be Alaska’s State bird. Another is that it is one of only two of Alaska’s seven native grouse species that completely changes its plumage from summer to winter. From its mostly mottled brown in spring and summer, it is completely transfigured during its autumn molt into a luminous white, which allows it to blend in superbly with its snowy winter landscape. At the same time, it adds a denser layer of feathers to keep it warm as well as a thick feathering on the tops and bottoms of its feet. Its claws also grow longer, making its feet look like little snowshoes.
This is probably also why it was given the scientific name, Lagopus lagopus, meaning “hare-footed” in Greek, because of its similarity to snowshoe hare feet in winter. Its common English name is from the Scottish Gaelic tàrmachan, meaning “croaker.” The pt prefix of the spelling derives from the Greek, meaning “winged.”
