The pheasant in my woods has been calling more frequent lately and I scared it into flight when I was walking near my pond. Powerful breast muscles can deliver bursts of power that allow the bird to escape trouble in a hurry by flying nearly vertically into the air and reaching speeds of nearly 40 miles per hour.
Ring-necked Pheasant
This pheasant was busy trying to find some seeds under the birder feeder now that a few patches of grass are showing after the rain melted some of the snow.
Seed Searching Pheasant
I saw a pheasant this morning that probably wished the snow was gone and he was wading through grass instead of that white stuff. I shouldn’t have chuckled when I saw his foot sinking deep into the snow every few steps, as I was breaking through the crusty snow later in the day too and it wasn’t fun jarring the body when my leg dropped a foot into the snow.
Pheasant Wants Green
This morning there was a male ring-necked pheasant on the road, who flew off as I approached, which was better than last evening when a deer ran in front of my car and it came way too close to the car instead of running away.
Pretty Pheasant
Yesterday I spotted a male ring-necked pheasant trying to corral his chicks off the highway and back into the ditch and hopefully he was successful keeping them off the road.
Young Pheasants
Yesterday there was six tom turkeys that would not get off the road, but it was the pheasants darting across the road in front of my car several times today. Maybe they were hanging around the blacktop road where it was warmer than the snow covered ground. And like me, they probably are dreaming of green grass instead of the cold frozen winter landscape.
Pheasant In Summer
I saw a pheasant in the road ditch and I heard more of them calling in the woods, so there might be be a little bit of spring fever in the air.
Pheasant in a Tree
These birds found a good feeding spot as a male Ring-necked Pheasant and one of his babies plus a Red-winged Blackbird picked at the fallen seed.
Birds Feeding
Although it maybe the opening of deer hunting here, this Ring-necked Pheasant keep his head down and stay camouflaged since the pheasant hunting season is still open too.
Camouflaged Pheasant
I saw this pheasant fly up to the trees and he is smart to get up off the frozen snow, but he probably is wishing he would have migrated south this winter as it has been a long, snowy, cold one. Ring-necked Pheasants sometimes cope with extreme cold by simply remaining dormant for days at a time.
The powerful breast muscles deliver bursts of power that allow the birds to escape trouble in a hurry, flushing nearly vertically into the air and reaching speeds of nearly 40 miles per hour.
Ring-necked Pheasant
