UKC

Last night I noticed several Ptarmigan doing a wing fluttering, ground hugging dance to (I assumed) distract me from their relatively immobile chick.

They fluttered on ahead of me in this fashion until I was several hundred metres away from the chick then flew off even further away ending up over a K away from where I disturbed them. Please tell me they always go back for the chick.

In reply to DaveHK:
I'm sure they do Dave
I stumbled across a mother and Ptarmigan chick on the Fannaichs 2 weeks ago.
The chick ran downhill and the mother , bizarrely , tried to stop my escape uphill away from the chick.
She did fly back towards where it had ran

In reply to DaveHK:

Brave birds, love them.

I remember once on the Torridon Beinn Dearg, weather and visibility both rubbish, I came close to treading on a little round granitey boulder which turned out to be a hen ptarmigan sheltering a whole brood of chicks.

In reply to DaveHK:
Do you mean the old broken wing dance? Follow me, I'm easy prey, ignore my chicks.

Lots of them doing this in the Cairngorms a couple of weeks ago. Not a lot of use if every time they do it they desert their chicks though so I suspect they do indeed go back!

In reply to DaveHK:
Yes, they do go back, so don't worry. The 'wounded bird' thing always seems a bit of pointless exercise to me. If they didn't bother most walkers/climbers wouldn't even see them. It just draws attention to the fact that they've got chicks nearby. Quite a few other birds do the same thing - a lot of waders (Dunlin, Golden Plover, Ringed lover all spring to mind).

In reply to GrahamUney:

I thought they would. I was surprised I hadn't seen it before but it's always great to see new stuff in the hills.

In reply to GrahamUney:


Perhaps they evolved before us and don't want to change their act?

In reply to Siward:


Ringed plovers do that too.

In reply to GrahamUney:


Nothing to do with walkers. It's behaviour to distract predators, evolved long ago.

In reply to DaveHK:

This happened to me the other day for the first time on Ben Klibreck. It was all a bit strange but at least I can sleep again now that I know they do go back to their babies.

In reply to DaveHK:

Have you experienced the bonxie solution to the same problem?

In reply to DaveHK:
They wouldn't flap or fly away for much else. Their energy conservation skills are pretty good. In other circumstances they just walk away while other birds are flapping and squawking all over the place.

In reply to DaveHK:

Last week on Beinn a'Bhuird I scattered a group of baby ptarmigan in all directions. The mother came almost up to me to round up the nearest ones and drive them back to the others and then off down the hill.

I once accidentally stood on a baby ptarmigan on Beinn Mhesdhoin. It struggled off towards its mother for a few metres then stopped and literally dropped dead.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Well, that's thoroughly depressed me.