White-tailed ptarmigan

The white-tailed ptarmigan, also called the snow quail, is the smallest bird in the grouse family. It lives year round at high altitudes on or above the tree line in Alaska and the mountainous parts of Canada and the western United States. Its plumage changes with the seasons: speckled gray, brown and white in summer and entirely white in winter, with white wings, belly and tail at all times of year. It feeds on buds, leaves, flowers and seeds, nests in a simple depression on the ground where it lays up to eight eggs, and its chicks leave the nest soon after hatching, eating insects at first before moving to the adult plant diet with guidance from their mother's calls. The IUCN lists the species as Least Concern, with an apparently stable population.