Freeing the pheasants
Readers may recall a recent article about acquiring 30 pheasant chicks from the New York State Department of Conservation to be raised and released. On September 8, the ones that didn’t escape were released at around 12 weeks old. The males were almost in full color which was interesting to watch develop. As chicks, males and females looked identical, but in a week or so some were obviously larger and around two to three weeks developed longer tail feathers – a solid clue that they were the boys. Colors came along slowly and the distinguishing white ring on the necks came on one feather at a time, it seemed. They could fly after only a few weeks and soon some of them were hanging upside down on the wire ceiling of their outdoor enclosure, searching for a way out.
The mortality rate was higher than I expected but apparently that is not uncommon. About 20 survived to be freed. It will be interesting to see how often they are seen in the coming weeks and months, assuming their instinct keeps them from becoming coyote or fox food.
Having them around reminded me of an autumn Sunday morning in the late 1940s. We came home from church about 9 a.m. to observe a pump cock pheasant strolling through our garden, sampling the veggies as he went along his way. We all enjoyed watching him, but my mother, Anna, had other ideas, such as roasting him in her Dutch oven. She reminded my father, Joe, that he had only brought home two pheasants during the hunting season, which was now closed. Anna urged Joe to harvest this one, since we were obviously feeding him.
Joe was a man who pretty much went by the rules and declined. Unhappy with the decision, Anna said something about how other men would do it. That was a challenge, so Joe went to the gun rack, picked up his Stevens single shot 22 caliber rifle and a couple of long rifle shells. He went to the house window closest to where the pheasant was, took aim and squeezed the trigger. The pheasant dropped in his tracks.
Despite losing his right eye in WWI, and having to switch to left-handed shooting, Joe was a very good shot. Besides, as he joked, “I don’t have to close my right eye.”
Realizing that someone may have heard the gunfire, he waited a while before heading over to the garden with a bushel basket in his hands, to retrieve the bird. As he bent down to pick it up, the pheasant jumped up, but couldn’t fly. He could, however, run and run he did – all over the garden with Joe in hot pursuit. Joe kept trying to drop the basket over the bird but it eluded him several times before he finally caught it. Meanwhile, half a dozen cars had gone down the road and some folks likely saw the activity. Joe ran to the barn, threw the bird in the wheat bin and buried it with wheat. After an hour or more, since no one showed up to question the activity, Joe retrieved the bird, dressed it and brought it in for cooking. It was a good fresh meal but I am not sure Joe enjoyed it.
If my father ever had any idea of being a poacher, it died along with that pheasant!
