Alaska · UplandWillow ptarmigan

Willow ptarmigan (Alaska's state bird) has the widest range in Alaska of any upland game bird, occupying willow-thicket and tundra habitat across nearly the entire state. ADF&G's own species profile names the only real statewide gaps: the broad, forested river valleys of the Interior (even there the species turns up occasionally in winter), the thick, closed-canopy woods of Southeast Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands west of Unimak Island. Within that huge range, ADF&G's own annual RY24 statewide wing-donation program (383 wings total) shows a clear concentration pattern that lines up with its own breeding-survey network: the Seward Peninsula, the Alaska Range, and Southcentral Alaska together accounted for the large majority of harvested birds, while the Interior's forested valleys — despite being geographically enormous — produced the fewest donations of any surveyed region (27 of 383), consistent with the species profile's own note that broad forested Interior valleys are one of its few real gaps.