7 October 2014 0700 - 1100 I visited RMNP this morning for a short period of time. I didn't get anything unusual. I just wanted to make a comment on the human brain. I have only seen ptarmigan in the spring or summer, never in their winter whites. I knew it was too early for that, but I was hoping to see at least a mostly white autumn coat on them; assuming I could find any. I walked the trail at Medicine Bow Curve down and back with no luck. I turned around and did it a second time. As I was half way back to the car after having missed the birds again to that point, I was just starting the process of rationalizing my miss. Tough bird, one set of eyes, hard to find, long shot at best, etc. I decided to do one last scan. That is when I had my cartoon panning double take moment. Think Loony Toons. Imagine the point of view shot of Elmer's gun sight as he pans left to right, going right past Bugs, then rapidly back to him (complete with the sound effects). I did that with my binoculars and it was so similar to those cartoons that I actually said, out loud, to the ptarmigan, "What's up Doc"? The brain is an amazing thing, too bad it is wasted on humans.
White-tailed Ptarmigan dressed for autumn https://www.flickr.com/photos/breitschbirding/15468639441/ The other trick of the brain is that I didn't even see the second bird until I got home and looked at the photos. I did see a second one up there, but it wasn't close to the first. Either one or both moved, or there was actually three. A Dusky Grouse along the Cub Lake Trail in the Moraine Park section was a nice bonus. John Breitsch Denver, Colorado https://www.flickr.com/photos/breitschbirding/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/bc43b020-9aab-45f7-858c-60260c40d10c%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
