I love rock ptarmigan, and I know why.
Sometimes fascinations arise for no apparent reason; you simply feel them, and that is enough. There are no definitive explanations.
With snow partridges, it is different: to me, they embody the rugged, cold and forbidding landscapes of the Alpine mountains, to which natural selection has perfectly adapted them – and which I, too, love.
The fate of these children of the cold is, however, uncertain, due to the numerous obstacles we humans have placed in the way of their peaceful existence in our mountains. Global warming, a decline in snow cover, the transformation and destruction of the mountain landscape, and constant disturbance throughout the seasons have drastically reduced their populations.
In many areas of the Pre-Alps, they are now nothing more than a memory. Added to all this is hunting, which continues despite the critical situation.
Every time I watch them moving quietly amongst the scree, I think of their uncertain future, hoping that they will manage to survive. It would be a terrible loss to be without their silent, stealthy movements, their sudden flights and that guttural, ancestral call which, when it carries through the air, transports you to a distant past.