Ptarmigan

It is said that events come in threes, and this is the third wildlife surprise to appear in front of my lens this week. So once again I've spent a while trying to coax a slightly blurred animal out of a heavily cropped image.

This ptarmigan is one of a pair that appeared almost under my feet on Carn a' Gheòidh (west of Glenshee). By the time I switched the camera on, and turned the zoom in the right direction, it had walked a few yards off and wasn't easy to spot among the rocks.

I love walking along the flat hilltops in this area, and I would have been happy to blip this mix of broken rock and moss even without the ptarmigan. Or perhaps just moss as far as the eye can see.