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In those days, this area was a pheasant Mecca. Those days are long gone now. With all the pivot sprinklers, there's just no cover or winter feed for them. Also, they've propagated the raptors. We now have hawks of every size around here. They have to eat a lot of them.

What shot size is best on them?

We always had good luck with 6.

6

Back when I was guiding for Ring Neck in the Mekong Delta....we used and liked the Fiocchi Golden Pheasant no.5's.

The picture is a little small and it's hard to tell but I think what you have there Paul is a Sichuan Pheasant.

We had a decent amount of pheasant around here back then too. They're nearly non existent now. We still have good cover but too many raptors and furred predators wiped them out pretty thoroughly. Raptors of all kinds have definitely been protected for far too long.

About 72 or 73, we had an incredible jackrabbit boom. The next year it busted. At the same time, they were starting to increase the raptors. After 45 years, the rabbits have never come back in any good numbers. I rarely see a cottontail any more. We also have quite a few red foxes.

I hear the occasional owl and hawk, but there aren't a whole lot of raptors around. I also created what I suspect is ideal habitat for pheasants. I carved a half mile long trail out around the perimeter of my property. Most of it has a canopy over it with lots of ground escape routes available.

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Great horned owls are particularly tough on the rabbits here. I find spots in the snow every winter where a set of rabbit tracks ends and all that's left is a little fur, a couple drops of blood and big wing prints in the snow.

That's weird, we have a ton of raptors here. Great horned owls, red tail and coopers hawks are numerous. I quite commonly see Great Horned owls fly by or perched in trees
when out in the woods at dusk. Bald eagle sightings are common. I saw two yesterday in a 25 mile drive up the interstate. One flying across the road and another perched in a tree along side. I've counted as many as 20 hawks perched on power poles/lines in that same 25 mile drive when I'm paying attention.

This is an informative read on pheasants and habitat requirements:

https://www.michigandnr.com/publica...downers_Guide/Species_Mgmt/Pheasants.htm

I must be missing something, I look and look and all I see is a winter-range Hermit Thrush, doing what hermit thrushes usually do. Fuzzy pic tho and I don’t see the distinctive russet tail, but hermit thrushes are found all across North America and have several subspecies which vary somewhat in appearance. Beautiful song tho, especially in the Eastern forms.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Hermit_Thrush

A pen raised pheasant will sometimes have an enlarged hole in their beak where blinders were once attached.

Have to download then enlarge. It's obviously a RNP.

An Eastern form in action 😎

https://musicofnature.com/project/hermit-thrush/

Back East they have competition from Wood Thrushes and such for being the most beautiful singer in the woods.

The Rocky Mountain forms sing a slightly thinner, less musical version, but when I get up into the mountains after the long haul across the Plains, the song of the hermit thrush is for me the sound of the Rockies 😎

The pheasants flourished when we were hard on predators and had ample hedgerows. Less so now. Was always hailed as a purely positive non-native introduction.

Number 6 six shot will cure what ails him.

You've watched too many birds and strained your lookers. Not sure how you see a song bird in that pic. As Boomer said, download and enlarge. You'll see the tail. Maybe.

Definitely not a thrush. It's hard to tell relative side from the photo, but with my familiarity with the area, it's way too big to be a thrush. It is pheasant sized.