White Birds of White Winter

I am pleased to deliver my first post of the new year.

Bright sunlight and white snow makes it definitely hard to look through the lens on top of the cold breeze cutting right into eyes. Suddenly, my eyes caught some movement in the white. It was a white bird with dinstinctive black eyes and beak, almost invisible on the white snowy background. It was female Falk (Lagopus muta). 

I crawled towards the bevy of about 15 birds. But the leader was on guard and was quick to warn the others as soon he caught me moving. 

Mongolist Simukov have once noted the existence of this bird back in 1930s. 

It took me four days and many hours of patient waiting and crawling on snow to get close enough to them and snap the pictures of these beautiful white birds. 

The bird perfectly fits into the cold climate as its feathers turn white during winter and brown during the summer, so that it has perfect camouflage against other vultures. Besides having dense feather, its feet are covered with fine down. 

During winters it nests beneath the snow wreath, which keeps them at -4C, even if the outside temperature drops to -50C.

Usualy it feeds with leaves and can survive the harsh winters. Male species have beautiful red brows. 

Due to beliefs that its meat has healing properties many species were hunted down and their numbers declined greatly during the past few years.