Pheasants - Gone, But Not Forgotten

D

Damaged Goods

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Location
Maryland
I really miss seeing the ring-necked pheasant, especially the males as they’d strut along the fence row, eating insects, and crying out their alarm, which is similar to that of a rooster but not as drawn out. Guess it has been 30 years since seeing the last one. What the foxes didn’t get, the hunters did, I reckon..
 

We have them here in the woods next to my house.... they are cute but such stupid birds they walk right out in the road just as cars are approaching, and the road through the woods is littered with carcasses sometimes.



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Modern farming and highway maintenance did more to eliminate the pheasant than hunting and predators did. Loss of habitat is the primary cause of pheasant population decline.
 
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When I was in my forties, I had a superb German Shorthair Pointer that was the best pheasant dog any man could hope for. I trained her in Georgia on hunting preserves with quail, chuckars, and pheasant. She also was great on woodcock and grouse in the creek bottoms. When she was about 5 yrs. old, I began to take her on hunts in Iowa for ringneck pheasants. We had great fun in the large marshes and Indian grass fields. She lived to be 14 yrs. old, and eventually died from lymphoma in her spine. Little did I know at the time, but these were my halcyon days.
 
I remember Thanksgiving 1955 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. My father went out early and shot a beautiful pheasant for our Thanksgiving table. I didn't see him de-feather it but I know it was very upsetting for my older sister to see. My mother set it on the dinner table as I and my 2 sisters looked on in sadness.

I was only in kindergarten but I remember asking him what the hole was and he answered, that's where I shot the bullet. Daddy was so proud of it but Mother, myself, and my 2 sisters all said No when he offered us a helping. He never hunted anything after that.
 
My stepfather's sister lived out in the country on an old farm and one year during pheasant season she put an old motheaten stuffed pheasant in the field next to the house. She would sit drinking her coffee while watching local hunters sneak up on the poor old pheasant and take a shot. One fella was a good enough shot to knock it over, when he ran up and saw that the pheasant was stuffed he looked around and propped the poor old pheasant back up for the next hunter.
 
hollydolly said:
Thanks Keesha, but for once this wasn't one of my pictures...:love: . I'm usually driving through the woods when I see them so hardly a chance to take any photos tbh...
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And they probably scared the chit out of you too 😅
Whoever takes these pictures must have a zoom lens cause they spook so easily. The funniest time I ever remember seeing pheasants was while I was walking through the forest. About two dozen of them went running right in front of me and because it was a pathway they were all single file. It was so darn cute. Maybe it was too dense a forest to fly right there.
 
Keesha said:
And they probably scared the chit out of you too 😅
Whoever takes these pictures must have a zoom lens cause they spook so easily. The funniest time I ever remember seeing pheasants was while I was walking through the forest. About two dozen of them went running right in front of me and because it was a pathway they were all single file. It was so darn cute. Maybe it was too dense a forest to fly right there.
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oooh they run in front of my car the whole time, and when I'm walking through the woods they'll scarper about 20 feet in front of me .. we also have partridges, and grouse in the same woods, along with the muntjac and the badgers, and squirrels and foxes.. ( there's always a lot of roadkill around on very early foggy mornings)...
 
oh my' we have lots in the nxt field' they come in the garden sometimes ' we see them all the time in the lanes ……..
 


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