大象传媒

Looking for wildlife on snow covered mountains has its ups and downs. You have to walk a long way in search of relatively little and yes, in winter it鈥檚 pretty chilly. But then when you do see something in a place like the Scottish Highlands it鈥檚 extra magical really. Bill Oddie is listening for the croaking sound made by ptarmigans. Ptarmigan comes from the Gaelic word, which actually means 'the croaker'. Bill is having trouble finding one, but thinks that if he were a ptarmigan, he would be on the sunny side of the ridge, where it鈥檚 not only sheltered but the snow is a bit thinner and beginning to melt. There鈥檚 proof that they鈥檝e been here - ptarmigan footprints. They look un-birdlike because ptarmigan has feathers on its feet, like natural-grown snowshoes. Where there鈥檚 one of these birds, there are probably more. You can see the tail swish mark there as well between the prints. And then Bill spots a ptarmigan. Just one. This is the only bird we have in the UK that actually goes white in winter. Ptarmigan go more or less pure white, as you can see. He hears the call - a little 'brrr' croak. Let鈥檚 see what they鈥檝e been eating. They鈥檝e been digging away, as the snow's much thinner here, to get to the young heather, shoots, or ling this is. It鈥檚 not all dried out as you might expect. This is the only place in Britain where you will see ptarmigan, and they stay high up here winter and summer. They really have virtually nothing that competes with them for food, so they feel safe up here. One of the things that amazes Bill is that these birds sleep up here too. Despite the lovely sunny afternoons it gets unbelievably cold at night - with the temperature dropping to minus 20. They may look like cosy little birds, but they鈥檙e tough.