The mountains report part VI - grouse & ptarmigan

In the area around the cabin there has apparently been a ban on grouse shooting for few years but that is to be lifted as the population is healthy and the fact that males were displaying from the roofs of cabins definitely seemed to support this. We had many encounter with Willow Grouse with males showing well and females generally just seen running away.

We had (Rock) Ptarmigan just on Valdresflye which is 400m higher up than the cabin and a pair showed well but surprisingly we had a pair of Willow Grouse in the same area but higher up so one can not just use habitat or altitude to separate these species.

male Willow Grouse (lirype) on the roof of the neighbouring cabin early in the morning

a female

note how in this picture she also has a lot of red above the eye which was not visible in the previous picture

this one was higher up the mountain than the Ptarmigan in the next pictures

female Ptarmigan (fjellrype) with skies behind

male with just a bit of red above the eye and the black lores that separate it in white winter plumage from Willow Grouse