They are really hardy, aren’t they? It’s amazing that they remain at altitude, in the driven snow, with no shelter, pecking through the snow to scrape an existence from the vegetation below.
1 Like
The only ones I’ve seen were a trio near the top of Sgurr Na Coinnich (GM/SI-020) on Skye a couple of years ago. They are superbly camouflaged even in the Summer and hard to spot amongst the rocks unless they move. I’ve not tasted one.
Looks like you had an epic day out, I got tired just reading the report.
I tried listening from Edinburgh on 2m but only had a handheld with me.
Andy
MM7MOX
2 Likes
Great day out… thanks for sharing the story and photos.
I went looking into my hillbagging.co.uk logs…. ha ha ha 1988…. 1988… feels like a lifetime ago. I recall seeing a lot of Ptarmigan too. I also saw Dotterel, that stands out as that was the first time I’d seen them. I was luckily with someone who was an RSPB warden and positively identified them.
Well done for persevering when it was raining. I think I’m going soft.
3 Likes
the photo above the spot the ptarmigan is excellent photograph depicting Sota Activating!
Also really suprised at the camoflauge of the ptarmigan!
It looks quite nobbily, not sure if those are meant to be feathers coming out of the page or the generation was confused over the mottled colours. Makes its head waffer thin!
2 Likes
I love that someone saw the image. Good work! The generator I used is a bit screwy but I’ll take what I can get!
I hated those Magic Eye books when they first came out. I could never see them. These days I find them fairly easy by just putting the book or screen to my nose and pull the image back slowly. Seems to work most times.
1 Like
I had several of those books and that’s how I used to do it but then learnt to “defocus” and just switch to seeing it without the motion. Valuable life skill.
2 Likes
i can see it! i can see it 
ive never been able to see those damn things before!
1 Like