Tag Archives: naturalist

WILLOW PTARMIGAN

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I’ve spent the last four afternoons looking for willow ptarmigan.  One of my photographic goals is to document more of their interesting behavior.  On top of that list of photo wants are photos of willow ptarmigan in their snow burrows.  Ptarmigan use snow to help insulate them against the frigid winter temperatures of interior Alaska.  Their use of snow burrows can occur any time of the day but most common as they prepare to roost for the night.  Willow ptarmigan are cyclic and their numbers have been quite low over the past two or three winters.  But as Justin pointed out, they seem to be bouncing back. Continue reading

SNOWSHOE HARE

ON THE TRACK OF THE SNOWSHOE HARE
28-50-26_snowshoehareA snowshoe hare watches his backtrail.

In the far north snowshoe hares are trapped in an eternal cycle. A ten year cycle of life and death, of peak and crash, of  predator and prey. Currently snowshoes are at the bottom of their population cycle.  Predator species like the northern goshawk, northern hawk owl, and lynx crash a year or two after the hares.  When the hare population is low they can still be found in bunny patches, small pockets of prime habitat. Thickets of mixed forests, spruce, poplar and willow are sanctuaries where a few hares somehow manage to survive extremely heavy pressure from predators. In lodgepole forests of eastern Idaho, my old stompin grounds, the snowshoe hares did not seem to go through the extreme population peak and crash. Continue reading