Bird of the Week: Chicken Crosses the Road
The Alaska State Bird crosses the Denali Highway, west of Paxson. The reason the bird chose to cross is left to the speculation of the reader.
Willow Ptarmigan Male, Denali Highway
The Willow Ptarmigan has been maligned recently. Some folks think that the species’ song – for a given definition of “song” – is so idiotic as to disqualify it from its current status. One birder went to far as to describe that song as “rejected Star Wars aliens, angrily standing outside the Mos Eisley cantina because their ID’s were rejected.” Harsh.
Yet the Willow Ptarmigan survives and even prospers across a wide variety of harsh habitats, dealing with brutal winters, extended darkness, cunning predators, scarce food and even sneering critics. All of which is why the Willow Ptarmigan should remain the state bird.
And this bird even shows up in James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake”, where a waiter respectfully inquires “Will madam ptake some ptarmigan”?
now I’m confused, I thought the State bird was the mosquito.
Beautiful photo as always, Wickersham’s Conscience. The only thing I know about ptarmigan (thanks, Alaska Pi, for the link to their call) is that they were Creb’s favorite food in Clan of the Cave Bear, and that Ayla liked to hunt for the nest after she killed one, so she could stuff it with its own eggs when she cooked it. Lovely feathers.
Ah, Zy………..love the Earth Children series. I think there are many ptarmigan types. Have you checked out fanfiction . com for fun follow ups to the series?
You are a dear, so maybe I can help with the salt air and waves thingy. I can fill a water tank with cold well water and epsom salts(for tired,sore feet) and let the prevailing winds stir up some whitecaps for you. Then,in October,I can haul you around to various small towns with insufficient grain storage facilities so you can see actual mountains of corn grow as they are stockpiled on the ground. I even have Tide in my laundry room. Alas,alack. Somethings are not meant to be. I would be lost without miles and miles of cropfields so I will resign myself to watching asparagus go to seed in solitude.(at least until I can contrive another scheme to get you to the only other state with four letters in its name,besides ohio)
LOL! ROFL until I almost bust a rib! Is amazing how we connect with what seems to be THE place to be , isn’t it? 🙂
I might come visit someday just to see your state bird, the Eastern Goldfinch.Very showy!
http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/Iowa/american_goldfinch.html
But not til I actually get to see the showy Pine Grosbeak which is supposed to be common here in the fall and winter. I’m no birder. At all. Don’t have the patience . At all. But I do love the many accidental encounters with feathered neighbors I’ve had, which is not the same as the sighting of a bird out of its normal territory type “accidental”.
I fell in love with pelicans ( CA brown Pelican ) when I was at college . Could watch them for hours and hours, elegant fliers, ungainly all-of-a-whump dive for fish… Cussed at the gulls which tried and often did nab the fish when pelicans came up with their catch…
We don’t have them here. Wish we did. Dang. The American White Pelican is listed as an “accidental” for my area but I have never seen one. Dang.
from the Daily Buckety(Daily Kos)-http://tinyurl.com/nxrb9l5
iowuz gots white pelicans.
Maybe this link won’t work. We got pelicans all over iowa at different times of the season.
Here: http://tinyurl.com/nxrb9l5
And on a semi-related note, did you know some birds –but not chickens– have penises? Here: http://www.geekosystem.com/how-the-chicken-lost-its-penis/ beth.
There is a parable in there for rwnj,fortunately or otherwise,they seem to be too busy minding other people’s morals for it to sink home.Good luck with the Whipporwill. Pretty soon he should be hoarse.
“Pretty soon he should be hoarse.” If only! beth.
Thanks mikey and beth!
That link led to another with more info and a map of the white pelican’s normal habitation areas. Can see why it would be a very “accidental” sight here.
Might just have to come visit Iowa to see the white pelicans 🙂
No pelicans here in the Metro area, but we do have gulls in the winter. They hang out on lightpoles in parking lots. Waiting for some kind soul (or dumb teen) to drop that mouth-watering delicacy… french fries.
I guess they can only find them in Colorado 😉
mikey remembers a story from third or fourth grade(1961 or1962) about how chickens ruled the barnyard by threatening to burn all other animals with their combs of red fire. How different would Alaska’s food chain look if ptarmigans had the cojones to threaten wolves and bears and……well…. rethuglicans with red fire?
According to Cherokee,iowa city regulations,your ptarmigan is not crossing in a designated crosswalk,so if he gets plowed under by a vehicle,regardless of the speed,control or impaired condition of the vehicle’s driver,that ptarmigan is wholly and singularly at fault. Same rule applies to seven year old kids. One was my youngest brother.
That’s a messed up traffic law……
Ben- we had another thunderstorm last evening/this morning which apparently whets your California deer’s vegetarian appetites. 25% of my tomatoes were eaten/pulled out by the roots,50 % of my bell pepper plants were eaten,the tops of two or three dozen asparagus stalks were chowed down on,several onion greens were chewed on and for deseert they stomped a mudhole in a couple of my potato hills. Not to mention I saw one of the varmints motoring across the corn field with a tiny next generation appetite in tow. Love to put string and tin cans around my garden if the wind ever stops blowing.
I think it’d be redundant for ol’ Ptarmigan to threaten the Rs with red fire…if I’m not mistaken, the Rs already live under the threat of it 24/7/367 (and 368 in leap years) — they’re constantly a’feared of damnation and good old-fashioned brimstone and eternal hell-fire. ’tis no wonder they’re such an ornery lot. Sad, that. beth.
Out on a thin limb here-what does ptarmigan taste like?
Frog?
(Sorry, couldn’t resist…and that lack of resistance brought back to mind one of the all-time fave rhymes of my kiddos when they were wee young’uns:
What a wonderful bird the frog are.
When he stand, he sit almost;
When he hop, he fly almost.
He ain’t got no sense, hardly;
He ain’t got no tail hardly, either.
When he sit, he sit on what he ain’t got, almost.) beth.
Trust you’re feeling better. I’m guessing ptarmigans and frogs do that to the Parnell/dislikers of the world.. Got me chuckling.
Yeah — now if I could just get this darned Whippoorwill from calling for a mate all . night . long! He set up shop in the forest right off our back yard about 7 years ago and drives us nuts with his incessant calls. Once he finds a mate, he shuts up, but until then, oh, boy howdy is he a pain! He’s been at if for nearly 3-weeks solid this time…the only break was for a 48-hour period right after we’d had a huge thunder storm roll on through. Ah, sweet peace in the night! I felt Very guilty (for a nano-second) when the thought crossed my mind that he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning and had gone to the great forest in the sky, but, alas, no such luck. He’s back at it; full throated. And monotonous. And jarring. And irritating as all hell! beth.
ThREE WEEKS ?? …. doesn’t sound like he’s very successful…. maybe you could help the poo lad out, and get a wooden Whippoorwill for him to seranade… might quiet him down some…. 🙂
I don’t think it’s the serenading he’s so keen on, it’s the “doing it” that he’s a’hankering for. Once he’s “been with a lady friend”, he seems to be content…and spent. At least until the following Spring, when, as soon as the moon is up, he starts the unrelenting, monotonous, piercing, damn 3-note call all . over . again. And again, And again. And… beth.
hhhmmm… how does that tune go ?? whip-poor- WILL, …whip-poor- WILL…. whip-poor- WILL …
.
.
.
.ben runs for the hills…:)
.
Nope, benlomond2, this ‘uns a Southern one… he says: WHIP-poor will; WHIP-poor-will; WHIP-poor-will.
With the emPHAsis on the first sylLAble, it makes for quite a jarring noise in the night. And obnoxious as chit.
…tell you how bad it is: The wonder dog lets out a bark of Dire-Danger-Warning each time the dang bird starts up with his ‘set’ of 15-or-so calls per tree. Once the 15-or-so are made, the dang bird spends about half an hour (max!) doing whatever and finding another perch somewhere in the near (to our backyard) forest, and then starts it up all . over . again.
If I didn’t remember how incredibly annoying and how extreme-tense-making the non-stop medium-high pitched drone of the 17-year cicadas are, I’d almost wish the cicadas would start up in earnest, here, to drown out our –lucky us!– resident male Whippoorwill’s call. Almost. beth.
Beth,shouldn’t that read EM-pha-sis on the first SYL-la-ble? Would that you could solve this as easily as I. I just remove my hearing aid and no more irritating bird noise. Just the sounds of jets flying over for a couple hours.It is good to be going deaf,almost.
Mike, could you speak up? I’m having a little trouble hearing you . . .
Frog…??? but that means it tastes like chicken !!! …….yum ! frog legs !!!
I haven’t had ptarmigan ( or frog legs ) for many years so I don’t really remember either very well.
Some people say ptarmigan tastes like an all dark meat chicken , some say a lot like liver. Not sure either comparison is truly descriptive.
Nasugraq Rainey Hopson’s recipe here :
http://salmonberryblood.blogspot.com/2013/03/ptarmigan-stew-recipe.html
reminds me of how family sometimes prepared it.
May I direct your attention to a place far, far to the north, north and way east of Fairbanks? The town is “Chicken”. The miners named it after the plentiful bird whose meat kept them from starving one winter. And they named it Chicken because they couldn’t spell Ptarmigan.
“C-H-I-C-K-E-N, that there’s the way to spell chicken.”
– Red Clay Ramblers
Oh. Pfffttt! on the snobby maligners!
http://www.larkwire.com/library/bird-sounds/125/Willow-Ptarmigan-songs-and-calls
Happy to have the sturdy willow ptarmigan for state bird.
Sturdy but not too smart. Like a lot of Alaskans…
Dear Ms Pi, move to iowa. We have had over twelve inches of rain in less than two weeks and we are starting to mold like your beloved rain forest. You will feel right at home amongst all the nutters and you can bring pictures of bears so you don’t get homesick.You can even grow tomatoes. Just be prepared for nearly exclusive nighttime thunderstorms and only about 17 hours of daylight. I’ve got blue spruce and con-color firs and you can cuss if you want. Nearest humans are at least a half mile away. You will get used to the smell of hogs? and cattle.
This is a really sweet offer mikey 🙂 but I would expire there from lack of salt air and big mountains.
Once upon a time I visited northern Ohio for awhile when Son of Pi was at university. The Amish farms in the area were beautiful, the huge sky was always doing something interesting, there were birds and plants I’d never seen… it was neat to see and smell and ponder all the new-to-me stuff.
After a week I made son take me to Lake Erie shore in hopes a view of big water would help and kept wanting to stop and go up elevators in buildings to get-off-the-flat-ground.
As we blazed down a highway, toward the sunset and the airport on my last day there, all I could think of was how far from tides we were. For northcoast born and bred me, tides are the heartbeat of the earth. I couldn’t feel that pulse there and it was very , very unsettling.