Which British member of the grouse family turns white as a winter camouflage?
"levels. Several of the forest-living species are notable for eating large quantities of conifer needles, which most other vertebrates refuse. To digest vegetable food, grouse have big crops and gizzards, eat grit to break up food, and have long intestines with well-developed caeca in which symbiotic bacteria digest cellulose. Forest species flock only in autumn and winter, though individuals tolerate each other when they meet. Prairie species are more social, and tundra species (ptarmigans, ""Lagopus"") are the most social, forming flocks of up to 100 in winter. All grouse spend most of their time on the ground, though when alarmed,"
"Snow goose The snow goose (""Anser caerulescens""), consisting of both a white phase and blue phase (blue goose), is a North American species of goose commonly collectively referred to as ""light geese"". Its name derives from the typically white plumage. Many taxonomic authorities placed this species and the other ""white geese"" in the genus ""Chen"". Most authorities now follow the traditional treatment of placing these species in the ""gray goose"" genus ""Anser"". The scientific name is from the Latin ""anser"", ""goose"", and "" caerulescens"", ""bluish"", derived from ""caeruleus "", ""dark blue"". This goose breeds north of the timberline in Greenland,"
"in the dress glengarries of the current Scottish super regiment, the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Black grouse The black grouse or blackgame or blackcock (""Tetrao tetrix"") is a large game bird in the grouse family. It is a sedentary species, breeding across northern Eurasia in moorland and bog areas near to woodland, mostly boreal. The black grouse is closely related to the Caucasian grouse. The female is greyish-brown and has a cackling call. She takes all responsibility for nesting and caring for the chicks, as is typical with gamebirds. The black grouse's genome was sequenced in 2014. The black grouse"
"Arctic hares which live in the far north of Canada, where summer is very short, remain white year-round. Since these animals in widely separated groups have evolved separately, the similarity of coloration is due to convergent evolution, on the presumption that natural selection favours a particular coloration in a particular environment. The seasonal polyphenism in willow grouse differs between Scottish and Scandinavian populations. In Scotland, grouse have two plumages (breeding and non-breeding), while in Scandinavia there is a third plumage, a white winter morph. The genetic basis for this is not in the melanin pigment system, and is probably due"
"across Eurasia and North America. All, with the exception of the red grouse, have a white winter plumage that helps them blend into the snowy background. Even their remiges are white, while these feathers are black in almost all birds (even birds that are predominantly white, such as the Bali myna) because melanin makes them more resilient and thus improves flight performance. The ""Lagopus"" grouse apparently found it easier to escape predators by not being seen than by flying away. These are hardy vegetarian birds, but insects are also taken by the developing young. In all species except for the"
"which many vagrant birds in Britain seem to derive. In Central America, vagrants are frequently encountered during winter. The snow goose has two color plumage morphs, white (snow) or gray/blue (blue), thus the common description as ""snows"" and ""blues"". White-morph birds are white except for black wing tips, but blue-morph geese have bluish-grey plumage replacing the white except on the head, neck and tail tip. The immature blue phase is drab or slate-gray with little to no white on the head, neck, or belly. Both snow and blue phases have rose-red feet and legs, and pink bills with black tomia"
"Willow ptarmigan The willow ptarmigan () (""Lagopus lagopus"") is a bird in the grouse subfamily Tetraoninae of the pheasant family Phasianidae. It is also known as the willow grouse and in Ireland and Britain, where it was previously considered to be a separate species, as the red grouse. It is a sedentary species, breeding in birch and other forests and moorlands in northern Europe, the tundra of Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada, in particular in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is the state bird of Alaska. In the summer the birds are largely brown, with dappled plumage,"
"a degree of protection from northern goshawks. The plumage can vary in Britain from almost pure white to black, but is usually shades of brown, with a pale 'necklace' of feathers. Of the two eastern subspecies, ""B. b. vulpinus"" breeds from east Europe eastward to the Far East (including Eastern China and South Asia), excluding Japan, while ""B. b. menetriesi"" breeds in the Southern Crimea and Caucasus to northern Iran. ""B. b. vulpinus"" is a long-distance migrant, excepting some north Himalayan birds, and winters in Africa, India and southeastern Asia. In the open country favoured on the wintering grounds, steppe"
"Spruce grouse The spruce grouse or Canada grouse (""Falcipennis canadensis"") is a medium-sized grouse closely associated with the coniferous boreal forests or taiga of North America. It is one of the most arboreal grouse, fairly well adapted to perching and moving about in trees. When approached by a predator, it relies on camouflage and immobility to an amazing degree, for example letting people come to within a few feet before finally taking flight, a behavior that has earned it the nickname ""fool's hen"". Spruce grouse are long; males weigh and females . Races vary slightly in plumage, especially in the"
"led to conflicts with farming, when large flocks of geese graze crops in the winter. Anser (bird) The waterfowl genus Anser includes all grey geese (and sometimes the white geese). Its name is derived from ""anser"" the Latin for ""goose"". It belongs to the true geese and swan subfamily (Anserinae). The genus has a Holarctic distribution, with at least one species breeding in any open, wet habitats in the subarctic and cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in summer. Some also breed further south, reaching into warm temperate regions. They mostly migrate south in winter, typically to regions in"
"according to many northern states' hunting rules. Spruce grouse The spruce grouse or Canada grouse (""Falcipennis canadensis"") is a medium-sized grouse closely associated with the coniferous boreal forests or taiga of North America. It is one of the most arboreal grouse, fairly well adapted to perching and moving about in trees. When approached by a predator, it relies on camouflage and immobility to an amazing degree, for example letting people come to within a few feet before finally taking flight, a behavior that has earned it the nickname ""fool's hen"". Spruce grouse are long; males weigh and females . Races"
"willow ptarmigan, the female takes all responsibility for nesting and caring for the chicks, as is typical with gamebirds. The distinctive British form of willow ptarmigan, the red grouse (""Lagopus lagopus scotica"") has sometimes been considered a separate species, ""L. scotica"", but this is no longer accepted. Two prehistoric species and two paleosubspecies are only known from fossils: Lagopus Lagopus is a small genus of birds in the grouse subfamily commonly known as ptarmigans (). The genus contains three living species with numerous described subspecies, all living in tundra or cold upland areas. The genus name ""Lagopus"" is derived from"
"Dormouse A dormouse is a rodent of the family Gliridae (this family is also variously called Myoxidae or Muscardinidae by different taxonomists). Dormice are mostly found in Europe, although some species live in Africa or Asia. A nocturnal animal, dormice are particularly known for their long periods of hibernation. As only one species of dormouse is native to the British Isles, the hazel dormouse, in everyday English usage ""dormouse"" can refer either to that one species or to the family as a whole. The English name of the species derived from the French ""dormeuse"", and the latter in turn probably"
"Hazel dormouse The hazel dormouse or common dormouse (""Muscardinus avellanarius"") is a small mammal and the only living species in the genus Muscardinus. The hazel dormouse is native to northern Europe and Asia Minor. It is the only dormouse native to the British Isles, and is therefore often referred to simply as the ""dormouse"" in British sources, although the edible dormouse, ""Glis glis"", has been accidentally introduced and now has an established population. Though Ireland has no native dormouse, the hazel dormouse has recently been found in County Kildare, and appears to be spreading rapidly, helped by the prevalence of"
"eggs and cares for the chicks alone, as is typical with gamebirds. Hazel grouse The hazel grouse (""Tetrastes bonasia""), sometimes called the hazel hen, is one of the smaller members of the grouse family of birds. It is a sedentary species, breeding across northern Eurasia as far east as Hokkaido, and as far west as central and eastern Europe, in dense, damp, mixed coniferous woodland, preferably with some spruce. This is a relatively small grouse at length. The plumage of this plump bird is finely patterned, but it essentially has grey upperparts, brown wings and chestnut flecked white underparts. The"
"gray at the end (lighter in the sooty grouse). Adult males are mainly dark (especially sooty grouse) with a yellow (sooty grouse) or purplish (dusky grouse) throat air sac surrounded by white, and a yellow (sooty grouse) or yellow-to-red (dusky grouse) wattle over the eye during display. Adult females of both species are mottled brown with dark brown and white marks on the underparts. Their breeding habitat is the edges of conifer and mixed forests in mountainous regions of North America and Eurasia. Their range is closely associated with that of various conifers. The nest is a scrape on the"
"plumage is either white all over, or colored in various dark bluish-grey hues; the latter birds, uniquely among true geese, do not have white uppertail and undertail coverts, though the tail itself may be white. White-phase snow geese of both species can be told apart from feral geese best by the more slender, elegant neck, which is thick-set in domestic geese; these also have a generally heavier body and often lack black wingtips. The supposed fossil dwarf snow goose ""Chen pressa"" is now placed in ""Anser"" (Brodkorb, 1964). Chen (genus) The white geese are a small group of waterfowl which"
"This is because, even if, as is suspected, numbers are declining slightly, it has a very wide range with a total population estimated at forty million individuals. Willow ptarmigan The willow ptarmigan () (""Lagopus lagopus"") is a bird in the grouse subfamily Tetraoninae of the pheasant family Phasianidae. It is also known as the willow grouse and in Ireland and Britain, where it was previously considered to be a separate species, as the red grouse. It is a sedentary species, breeding in birch and other forests and moorlands in northern Europe, the tundra of Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada,"
"Anser (bird) The waterfowl genus Anser includes all grey geese (and sometimes the white geese). Its name is derived from ""anser"" the Latin for ""goose"". It belongs to the true geese and swan subfamily (Anserinae). The genus has a Holarctic distribution, with at least one species breeding in any open, wet habitats in the subarctic and cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in summer. Some also breed further south, reaching into warm temperate regions. They mostly migrate south in winter, typically to regions in the temperate zone between the January 0 °C (32 °F) to 5 °C (41 °F)"
"Chen (genus) The white geese are a small group of waterfowl which are united in the genus or subgenus Chen, in the true geese and swan subfamily Anserinae. They breed on subarctic areas of North America and around the Bering Strait, migrating south in winter. Most authorities now place these species in the grey goose genus ""Anser"". Indeed, ""Chen"" and ""Anser"" are anatomically indistinguishable. However, external morphology, biogeography, and molecular data suggest that the white geese are indeed an evolutionary lineage distinct from the grey geese—from which they split off fairly recently, essentially replacing them in North America. The AOU"
"family allied to Myoxidae (some taxonomists call this family Gliridae), the dormice. By 1947, they had concluded that it should be placed in Leithiinae, a subfamily of Myoxidae, along with three other dormouse genera. This dormouse has a head-and-body length of between and a tail of between . It has a robust, rounded body and soft dense fur, the upper parts being grey and the underparts white. Unusually for a mammal, it sheds the upper layers of its skin with the hairs when it moults, starting at the back of the neck and continuing along the body and flanks, the"
"been allowed again since 2005, but is restricted to selected days, which are revised yearly and all trade of rock ptarmigan is illegal. In Thomas Bewick's ""A History of British Birds"" (1797) the species is named as ""White Grouse"" with alternatives ""White Game, or Ptarmigan"". The birds feed, records Bewick, ""on the wild productions of the hills, which sometimes give the flesh a bitter, but not unpalatable taste: it is dark coloured, and has somewhat the flavour of the hare."" Rock ptarmigan The rock ptarmigan (') is a medium-sized gamebird in the grouse family. It is known simply as the"
"the hazel grouse (""Tetrastes bonasia""). However, in the northernmost parts of Scandinavia, these are replaced by the smaller willow ptarmigan (""Lagopus lagopus"") and rock ptarmigan (""Lagopus muta""). A study in Belarus showed grouse were the most common family of prey at 47.8% of the eagle diet. In Estonia, the prey base is more varied, but grouse were still the most represented bird family, comprising 18.1%. The red grouse, a race of willow ptarmigan (""Lagopus lagopus scotica""), and the rock ptarmigan (also called just ptarmigan) occur heavily in the golden eagle's diet in parts of Scotland, up to 47.8% in one"
"as heavy in the western capercaillie, the biggest member of the family. Grouse have feathered nostrils. Their legs are feathered to the toes, and in winter the toes, too, have feathers or small scales on the sides, an adaptation for walking on snow and burrowing into it for shelter. Unlike other Galliformes, they have no spurs. These birds feed mainly on vegetation—buds, catkins, leaves, and twigs—which typically accounts for over 95% of adults' food by weight. Thus, their diets vary greatly with the seasons. Hatchlings eat mostly insects and other invertebrates, gradually reducing their proportion of animal food to adult"
"differently between grouse and other birds. In some cases, the female is dominant over the male in breeding behavior, which can result in females that are larger than the males. Grouse are game, and hunters kill millions each year for food, sport, and other uses. In the United Kingdom, this takes the form of driven grouse shooting. The male black grouse's tail feathers are a traditional ornament for hats in areas such as Scotland and the Alps. Folk dances from the Alps to the North American prairies imitate the displays of lekking males. Genus ""Falcipennis"" Genus ""Dendragapus"" Genus ""Lagopus"" –"
"of winter plumage, many Ptarmigan in NE Iceland are killed by Gyrfalcons throughout the winter."" More recently, decreasing snow cover in Poland, caused by global warming, is reflected in a reduced percentage of white-coated weasels that become white in winter. Days with snow cover halved between 1997 and 2007, and as few as 20 percent of the weasels had white winter coats. This was shown to be a result of natural selection by predators making use of camouflage mismatch. In the words of camouflage researchers Innes Cuthill and A. Székely, the English zoologist and camouflage expert Hugh Cott's 1940 book"
"Snowy egret The snowy egret (""Egretta thula"") is a small white heron. The genus name comes from the Provençal French for the little egret ""aigrette"", a diminutive of ""aigron"", ""heron"". The species name ""thula"" is the Araucano for the Black-necked Swan, applied to this species in error by Chilean naturalist Juan Ignacio Molina in 1782. The snowy egret is the American counterpart to the very similar Old World little egret, which has established a foothold in the Bahamas. At one time, the beautiful plumes of the snowy egret were in great demand by market hunters as decorations for women's hats."
"is sold as pink and white cultivars. Chionodoxa Chionodoxa, known as glory-of-the-snow, is a small genus of bulbous perennial flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae, often included in ""Scilla"". The genus is endemic to the eastern Mediterranean, specifically Crete, Cyprus and Turkey. The blue, white or pink flowers appear early in the year making them valuable garden ornamentals. The common name of the genus is based on the habit of flowering in high alpine zones when the snow melts in spring. ""Chionodoxa"" is distinguished from the closely related genus ""Scilla"" by two features: the tepals are joined at"
"complicated changes in plumage several times a year and the differing colour and pattern of the summer plumage: The willow ptarmigan often hybridises with the black grouse (""Tetrao tetrix"") and the hazel grouse (""Tetrastes bonasia"") and occasionally with the western capercaillie (""Tetrao urogallus""), the spruce grouse (""Falcipennis canadensis"") and the rock ptarmigan (""Lagopus muta""). During the Pleistocene, the willow ptarmigan widely occurred in continental Europe. Authors who recognize paleosubspecies have named the Pleistocene willow ptarmigan ""L. l. noaillensis"" (though the older name ""medius"" might be the correct one). These marginally different birds are said to have gradually changed from the"
"use of electronic callers, unplugged shotguns, extended shooting hours, and no bag limits. Two years after the Light Goose Conservation Order was introduced it was federally mandated in 1999. Snow goose The snow goose (""Anser caerulescens""), consisting of both a white phase and blue phase (blue goose), is a North American species of goose commonly collectively referred to as ""light geese"". Its name derives from the typically white plumage. Many taxonomic authorities placed this species and the other ""white geese"" in the genus ""Chen"". Most authorities now follow the traditional treatment of placing these species in the ""gray goose"" genus"
"Snow scorpionfly Boreidae, commonly called snow scorpionflies, or in the British Isles, snow fleas (no relation to the snow flea ""Hypogastrura nivicola"") are a very small family of scorpionflies, containing only around 30 species, all of which are boreal or high-altitude species in the Northern Hemisphere. Recent research indicates the boreids are more closely related to fleas than to other scorpionflies, which renders the order Mecoptera paraphyletic if the order Siphonaptera is excluded from it. These insects are small (typically 6 mm or less), with the wings reduced to bristles or absent, and they are somewhat compressed, so in fact"
"Black grouse The black grouse or blackgame or blackcock (""Tetrao tetrix"") is a large game bird in the grouse family. It is a sedentary species, breeding across northern Eurasia in moorland and bog areas near to woodland, mostly boreal. The black grouse is closely related to the Caucasian grouse. The female is greyish-brown and has a cackling call. She takes all responsibility for nesting and caring for the chicks, as is typical with gamebirds. The black grouse's genome was sequenced in 2014. The black grouse is one of the many species first described in the 10th edition of ""Systema Naturae"""
"to be further increasing mortality. Ruffed grouse The ruffed grouse (""Bonasa umbellus"") is a medium-sized grouse occurring in forests from the Appalachian Mountains across Canada to Alaska. It is non-migratory. It is the only species in the genus Bonasa. The ruffed grouse is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a ""partridge"", an unrelated phasianid, and occasionally confused with the grey partridge, a bird of open areas rather than woodlands. The ruffed grouse is the state bird of Pennsylvania, United States. ""Bonasa umbellus"" was first described by Linnaeus who classified it as ""Tetrao umbellus"", placing it in a subfamily with Eurasian grouse."