Any of various game birds in the family Tetraonidae (order Galliformes), including the prairie chicken and ptarmigan, or the sandgrouse (order Columbiformes).
Most of the birds that have ent the brief summer on the tundra now disa ear, leaving only the golden eagle, the gyrfalcon, the ptarmigan, and the owy owl to brave the sunle northern winter.
Its cause was not helped by examples such the " p" which was added to the start of ptarmigan with no etymological justification whatsoever other than the fact that the Greek word for feather, ptera, started with a " p" .