Habitat and Range
The Rock Ptarmigan is a sedentary species which breeds across arctic and subarctic Eurasia and North America (including Greenland) on rocky mountainsides and tundra. It is widespread in the Arctic Cordillera and is found in isolated populations in the mountains of Scotland, the Pyrenees, the Alps, Bulgaria, the Urals, the Pamir Mountains, the Altay Mountains, and Japan. Because of the remote habitat in which it lives, it has only a few predators—such as Golden Eagles—and it can be surprisingly approachable.
During the last ice age, the species was far more widespread in continental Europe.
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