My trail camera in South MS took this shot this morning. I have no idea what I am looking at.

Ring-necked pheasant

Yes. China pheasant, my grandad would say.

That's what I thought. They are non-native here.

They are non-native here too.

But I know what you mean.

Likely an escapee from a game farm. Maybe a plantation?

From China 1864 into Oregon's Willamette Valley. Or maybe it was 1884.

They are "non native" in North America but they have been imported from Asia.
Some places have breeding populations established by escaped or released birds.

We used to have lots of them here but as farmers switched from ditch irrigation to sprinklers, the cover disappeared. No more birds.

Get out there and blast that sucker with a twenty gauge. Very tasty.

All I see is a stick

😄

Mileormore Bird!

Has 6” nut sack and 5” legs! When he lands you can hear him holler a mile or more!!

I am thinking it's an escapee from somewhere. I kicked it up yesterday morning but I only saw it flying through thick vegetation. I thought it was a turkey. I am going to try to make groceries out of it.

Grandpa would call them Chinks.

Hahaha!

I think is a Great Speckled Bird.

All I see are the skid marks from the "mileormore bird".

It's interesting to see how others ask questions about something we take for granted everyday. Tasty birds.

Seventy year old eyes suck.........

I found it.

Rock Chuck, in the late 60's and mid 70's a friend of mine live in Buhl. He worked for Green Giant as a field rep. to growers. He had access to some amazing pheasant hunting. I hunted with him a lot, so many birds. Great times.

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.

image sharing

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.

He might be teasing....

Hilarious, it took me a tenth of a second to know that was a cock pheasant. You sure can tell who lives in pheasant range on this thread.

A close up...

Ohno bird. Every time he lands you can hear it holler, " ohno, ohno".

Yep, Ring Neck Pheasant. Taken many here in N.Central Iowa. Very tasty bird!

Could be wrong, if that diagonal stick thing is standing in for an upraised long tail it sure is attached at a weird angle way low relative to the body, the two darker shades for the back of the pheasant’s head are mirrored by other darker shapes elsewhere. Right below those two dark shapes is that dark eye spot, russet cap right above adjacent to diagonally pointed up beak....

But.... if it’s a pheasant it a pheasant, doesn’t have to be as richly colored as the dead one in the other pic, several subspecies were released at different times and all interbred.

OK BW, what do you see here?

Fiocchi is great upland ammo.

If I were that old I'd be forgetful too.

In the 80" s I would hunt my brothers ranch near Vale Oregon. Sun coming up, sitting at the kitchen table having a cuppa, it would look like the alfalfa field next to the corn was marching.
Look down a row and the bottom was almost filled with shucked and shelled cobs.
Skinned , covered with mushroom soup and baked , you are eating like a god!

LOL

Song sparrow landing on his head (his actual head).

Here's a turkey vulture.

A few years ago a guy across the river raised some pheasant and either let them loose or had escapees. I knew they were there from the calls- I grew up in NoDak pheasant country.

On day a rooster flew across and landed in my yard. Th Lab had no idea what it was (it wasn't a grouse or duck), but wasn't taking chances - he stood on the deck and barked at it.

It WAS tasty!

in MS it is actually a redneck pheasant.

Here's a California Condor:

Ya but what kind of bird are they really?

The Campfire has gone crazy....


MFF?

The price of fox skins went in the toilet, fox depredation combined with multitudes of hawks have knocked the heck out of pheasant numbers.

And with all farm land locked up and posted, there are few places to hunt pheasant around here. I doubt the I'd game dept is stocking many birds these days.

I wanted to raise and release pheasants when my place was surrounded on 3 sides by CRP until I read articles like this one:

https://www.pheasantsforever.org/Habitat/Pheasant-Facts/Pheasant-Stocking.aspx


pheasant stocking
an ineffective management tool
Stocking of pen-raised birds is not an efficient means to increase wild bird populations, as shown by numerous studies over the past 25 years. Developing and enhancing habitat, on the other hand, has proven to help increase ring-necked numbers.

WHAT IS PHEASANT STOCKING?
By definition, "stocking" is the release of pen-raised pheasants into habitat where wild birds already are present. "Introductions" or "transplants" are different. These refer to the capture and release of wild birds into areas where birds are not generally present, using management that has been studied very thoroughly.

WHAT about stocking young (8-14 WEEKS old) Pheasants?
On average, only 60 percent will survive the initial week of release. After one month, roughly 25 percent will remain. Winter survival has been documented as high as 10 percent but seldom exceeds 5 percent of the released birds.

with HIGH MOrTALITY RATES, SHOULDN'T WE CLOSE THE SEASON?
For the most part, hunting has little to do with poor survival. Predators take the real toll on pen-raised pheasants, accounting for more than 90 percent of all deaths. The reason being pen-raised birds never had a chance to learn predator avoidance behavior. Starvation can also be a problem. Some newly-released pheasants take up to three weeks to develop optimal foraging patterns essential to survival in the wild.

WHY NOT WAIT UNTIL SPRING TO RELEASE BREEDER HENS?
Mortality is still very high—roughly 40 to 70 percent of the hens will perish before attempting to nest. Also, high mortality rates continue even after nests are initiated or eggs successfully hatched, resulting in dismally low production. The average production of spring-released hens ranges from 5 to 40 chicks per 100 hens released. Thus, released hens are not productive enough to replace their own losses.

CAN'T SURVIVIAL RATES BE DIFFERENT FOR SOME AREAS?
There often will be a few that make it, but studies have shown they are unable to maintain a population. This is why local stocking programs continue year after year. Ultimately we must ask ourselves why there is a need to repeat stocking efforts on an annual basis if survival is as high as often claimed.

isn't minimal survival better than none at all?
Not necessarily. We're concerned about a self-sustaining population that we won't have to continually supplement with pen-raised birds. In order to remain at a constant level, wild pheasant populations must have a production rate of roughly four chicks (surviving to 10 weeks) per hen. With production rates of less than one chick per hen, a population would decline rapidly.

stocking worked initially, why wouldn't it work now?

When pheasants were first transplanted (different than stocking) and introduced to the U.S., the landscape was far different from the one we have today. Farming techniques were primitive, field sizes smaller and crops more diversified. These habitat conditions created a situation ideally suited for the introduction of a farmland species like the ring-necked pheasant.
Is there harm in releasing birds?

Though not proven, there is cause for concern. Genetic dilution may be occurring. Even with minimal survival, the release of thousands of pen-raised birds over many years may be diminishing the "wildness" of the wild stock. Another concern is that, by releasing hundreds of birds in a given area, predators may start keying on pheasants. This may result in wild birds incurring higher predation. Finally, there is the potential of disease transmission from released birds to the wild flock.
What if I just want to put a few more birds in the bag?
Simple enough. Release the birds as close to the time you want to hunt as possible. To do otherwise is a waste of money. Pen-raised birds do provide shooting opportunities and a chance to keep your dog in shape. Just keep in mind that these birds are not going to produce a wild self-sustaining population in your area.

Is there hope for areas with LOw pheasant populations?
Yes. Start by understanding pheasant habitat needs. What kinds of areas do pheasants nest in? What are optimal covers in which they survive harsh winters? How can these areas be created and preserved? The answers can be learned from your local wildlife professionals. Consider becoming a member of Pheasants Forever. Informative and educational articles on these and other subjects are part of every Pheasants Forever Journal of Upland Conservation. If you are serious about improving local habitat conditions, consider joining or forming a local chapter.

With improved habitat, where will pheasants come from?
Because of their high productivity, wild pheasants in the area can quickly populate newly-created habitats. In unpopulated areas of suitable habitat, transplanting wild birds or their offspring (F1 generation) appears to be the best solution. The first step should be an investigation of factors that have limited pheasant populations in the past—for example a lack of winter habitat or increased pesticide use.

can we realistically rebuild wild pheasant numbers?
Yes. During the past 50 years there has been a colossal amount of money spent on supplemental stocking programs by state and local governments, sportsmen's groups, and private individuals. If these dollars would have been invested in habitat restoration, hundreds of species of wildlife in addition to pheasants would have been benefited.

Here's the bottom line: When habitat conditions improve, wild pheasant populations will increase in response to that habitat.

You’ve gotten the correct answer from the guys here, it’s a Chinese Ringneck Pheasant. It’s hard to tell from the picture but it looks like a young rooster with its shorter tail feathers.

On a side note concerning raptors......

About 12 years ago I and another friend of mine decided to do a DIY moose hunt out of Delta Junction Alaska and we wanted to take a buddy of ours that was the ranch manager for another friends ranch outside of Ellensburg. Mike had never been to Alaska so we’d be helping our friend achieve a lifelong dream and make memories in the process. Long story short.....we had a fantastic time even though we didn’t shoot a moose. We saw a lot of moose but none with the required number of brow tines. There were 2 that I thought would go better than 50” but I wasn’t absolutely 100% positive so we didn’t shoot. I wasn’t going to risk shooting a 49” moose and lose my hunting privileges in my favorite place in the world so not shooting never bothered me, we accomplished what we’d wanted to anyway....make great memories with friends.

A few weeks after returning from Alaska we went over to the ranch to punch a few cow elk depredation permits. When we got to the ranch we found out Mike wasn’t feeling well and wanted to stay in bed rather than hunt which was a sure sign that he truly wasn’t feeling well. Fast forward a week and I got a call from my friend. He told me the bad news.....Mike had apparently gotten up in the middle of the night and collapsed right next to his bed never regaining consciousness. Unknown to him he had a giant brain tumor which is what took him from us far too soon.

A couple of weeks later we had a memorial service for him. After the service few of his closest friends and the few remaining family members he had went to the ranch to spread his ashes in a spot in the woods that he loved. He’d sit in that woodsy meadow and play guitar or just sit quietly soaking up the smells and sounds of his paradise. He really loved that spot. It was winter and we’d had a lot of snow, so much snow that we used snowshoes to hike to Mike’s favorite spot. It was a beautiful sunny day and the fresh powdery snow was a striking contrast to our rather dark mood. We got to the exact spot where we intended to spread his ashes when I noticed what could only be described (to our sad minds) as the impression of an angel in the snow......it obviously wasn’t an angel but it was as comforting as it was beautiful. That impression in the snow was from a Snow Owl that had swooped down grabbed a rabbit that was unlucky crossing the meadow and left a perfect impression in the snow. The outstretched wings and the feather details in the snow was really cool and it seemed to us that was a sign that Mike was at peace. It was a beautiful and moving end to a good man’s life and something I’ll never forget.

Sorry for the tangent.....😁

Is this a dogbird or a birddog?

You're not alone. Was thinking WTF, invisabird?, until copied and zoomed around. Actually I think it's a road runner - it's on the road and a-runnin.

In the late '60's or early '70's the LDWF brought pheasant from somewhere in Texas I believe, that were acclimated to hot weather, to south Louisiana. Pheasants were able to adjust, but then a virus that was lethal to wild turkeys was discovered in the pheasants. Stocking stopped, but you can see them occasionally in Cameron Parish on roads.

#5 Fiocci is perfect

That kind of tangent is good. That was a moving story, I am glad you shared it.

Another vote for that shell.

The plated shot shell is great for later season, when the birds are heavily feathered.

As a kid, I lived in two places depending n the year or time of year. In Alberta, this was a pheasant. In Idaho, it was a Chink. Alberta had a decent wild population but they were less common in Idaho. I always figured, if I was going to introduce a non-native species, I would go with Hungarian Partridge. Much better suited to the habitat. GD

If I shot #6 at pen raised birds I'd pillowcase them.

Low base 7 1/2 works just fine.

Wild birds? They're tough. Sometimes I've wished I had a #4's

wood,

The 5's have it over 4's IMO. The 4 shot density drops off a lot.

LOL...I agree about wild birds. Sometimes I wish I shot flack.

Looks little and skinny for #6. If there was a beer can next to em I'd have a perspective .

That's a good story Ace. No need to be sorry. RIP to your buddy.

Thats a snipe

Thanks guys. I appreciate the kind words. 👍

PS.....Paul, We might’ve seen things differently about the UPS driver in Florida and that’s alright since if I agreed with anyone 100% of the time I’d question myself. I wanted you to know that I appreciate your contributions here, it’s the various intelligent and informed opinions , although they might differ, that makes this place great. Best regards.

Who's the stud that drives those nails in the hanging pheasant pic?

I think the perfect shell would be #7 and 3/4 no base.

Yep. Great story, Ace.

Do improved habitat conditions include decreased numbers of predators?

Is it true they taste like chicken?

Nice picture, Cheesy. Frameworthy.

I don't see a fuggin' bird in that picture.

I don't think hardly anybody does,.....but they don't wanna sound stupid,..so they holler out the name of a bird and call it good.

I think it's a fuggin' Shikepoke.

So there.

Not sure but around here the DNR cuts down all the tree's in the wildlife mgmt. areas so the raptors have no place to sit. Kinda sucks for deer hunting.

I still wonder what those MFFs are. (Medium Fat Fuggers). In Montana, early November, one large group, about 100 woke me up at home on the roof and a couple Russian Olive and an Aspen tree taking a rest break.... The other smaller group pictured on the pavement a few days later.

Wish that picture was clearer. Hard to tell exactly. I'll think on it tonight and maybe glance at a couple of books. Maybe Birdwatcher might have a clue...........although I think Mike missed on the pheasant a bit. Time for HOCKEY!

Geno

They look like cowbirds.

Aces, possible, but the one in the foreground has too long a bill

Maybe a juvenile/female robin. Big flock migrating through Boomer's area?



Geno

I love pheasant on the plate. I would pen raise and butcher some here, but for those durn brown bear, who think my yard is their yard.

It's a swallow...or maybe a coconut...

I don't know what you fellas are drinking, but you might consider cutting that with some rain water. No way in H3LL that's a rooster pheasant. Looks like a female Robin or Wood Thrush or the like

The perils of photo ID: reconciling a momentary image of a bird with one you know, in that moment the apparent shape of the bird can be anything, fieldmarks become all-important.

Certainly blackbirds, possibly mixed flock.

Likely candidates: common grackle, Brewer’s blackbird, brown-headed cowbirds. All female (brown) flock.

Front ones with longer bills/tails I’m gonna go with common grackle, the rest Brewer’s blackbirds.

If that’s in North America it’s certainly a golden-crowned kinglet, otherwise IIRC there’s a close relative in Eurasia called a goldcrest.

Actually not that hard; plain greenish short-winged bird with prominent wingbars, large headed.

First guess I’m gonna go with Acadian flycatcher tho the legs/feet look a little big for this sit-on-a-perch species, second guess white-eyed vireo.

Last night I had a pic of a coon, a rabbit and a wildcat.

That one of them cat birds?

When I first saw this post yesterday, I saw a rooster pheasant in about 1/100 of a second. Keying In on the white ring of the neck immediately. Trained eye from scanning road ditches . Looks just like a pheasant quartering away from the camera.

Now that I’ve looked again, I’m questioning if the white ring in the neck isn’t actually some grass or stick on the ground. And wondering if what I see as a black head above the white ring is something on the ground.

I have been converted to the NOT a ringneck pheasant group. Wayy too small. Go ahead, let the ridicule roll.

I picked it out by seeing the white neck ring. Mallard.

Yah, mixed,,thinking CG and BHCBs. The CG is new to me, did not think BB as they are common to me. But, I will look over my other pics and think mixed what ifs.

If it ain’t in fact a pheasant-sized bird, pretty much a slam dunk to be a hermit thrush, all the rest are down in the Tropics this time of year. Hermits are common in winter all across the South. We get a bunch around here, once in a while they sing right before they head north in the spring.

Midget rightwing peasant?

If you'll use the stick in front of the cat as a frame of reference for size, you'll see that the bird is much larger than the typical thrush/jay size.

Exactly what I was thinking Paul.

Geno

Birdy, do grackles get way up there in MT?

Geno

Of course. Do you doubt my LBJ MFF identifrabrication skills? Sheesh.

Rufflegged grouse harrier?

The ones in the front look kinda like Martin's but not sure.

Some kind of Thrush is up front...

Ifn yu wurr a bettir fotografer,

weed not bee havin this diskuscion.

Geno

PS, thrushes of some sort, maybe mixed with some blackbirds? But the bills on those front ones are too long for most blackbirds, no?

Common Grackles breed across most of Canada, winter mostly in the Eastern half of the US but the photo is early November, not too late for migration. I took a second and third look at photos of common grackles, they do not have the apparent facial pattern of the front bird.

Here's the thing, the front bird looks like a dark image of a brown thrasher, down to the eye color....

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Brown_Thrasher/id

...which is even more unlikely than a common grackle, dependent upon where in the West the photo was taken.

A brown thrasher out in a parking lot with blackbirds would have to be an extremely hungry brown thrasher, usually they stick to brushy cover.

Likewise those smaller birds look a lot like winter-plumage rusty blackbirds, but rusty blackbirds are fast becoming the rarest of our blackbirds, in the midst of a steep and mysterious population crash, and they are found mostly in wet brush edges and the shores of ponds and rivers...

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Rusty_Blackbird/id

Ok, it's a really small cat?

Next time I go out there I am going to put a beer can (12 oz not 40) in the frame.

Cock bird.

birdy,

thrasher was one of my first guesses, but out in the open and in MT but I didn't think of them being that far north. Sibley map show that as summer range though.

But, in looking through the thrasher pages...................what about sage thrashers?

Might be more likely to be found in the open?

Geno

PS Boomer, no ground truthing now ..............migratory bird act and all that.

There, I fixt it for you.

Proper campfire printing and all , you know.

Geno

Geno, I might have shot three or four COCKS grand total so far this season.

Not cheap either, $100 for a Rez cock license AND another $100 for upland(sharptail, huns...etc..)....

Spent $200 to get maybe 6 birds.
(but by God I was legal.....)


Haven't been out hunting in weeks.

Sam, your cockshots even look good upside down.

Had to look it up, local tribe gets $125 for pheasant, non-Indian. ($5 for tribal members.) That's tribal land on former res and not very productive for pheasants. Deer costs $300. In other words non-Indians not wanted. Unless they're stupid enough to pay way too much.

It's a grey area.


I only hunt cocks on deeded ground(aka private property) and might not even need a license(IMHO).....

Could be, seems more of a stretch for a lighter colored bird like a sage thrasher to look that dark tho.

No sage thrasher, another familiar to me.... But BHCBs are for sure here. And this summer I was certain I had others pegged as grackles. They're sure plump!

That's what's funny here. Sissetonai were generally cooperative and in fact helped put down some renegades. In recognition the reservation was dissolved and tribal members could tree claim 200 acres. So the whole former res is a patchwork of tribal and non-tribal land. In fact my house sits on a former tree claim, sold to a white farmer. Tribal land is generally filled with rocks from the last glacier and is good for grazing. Some is tillable (leased) but none of it is particularly good for pheasants. So it amounts to no white guys wanted unless we can screw them. Same with working with the GF&P in setting seasons and limits for good management since the patchwork of tribal land works down to couple hundred acre parcels. Better now, but a few years ago the tribe sold as many licenses as they could through the casino advertising extended seasons and generous limits.

Not usually, a bird’s outline is of course a function of its feathers at any particular moment, said feathers being raised or lowered at will. Resting birds or cold-stressed and/or starving birds frequently fluff out their body feathers to conserve heat.

The feathers are so efficient that technically it ain’t often a bird succumbs to hypothermia, usually their ramped-up avian metabolism has ‘em maintain body heat all the way till they die of actual starvation, which in a normal-weight songbird is about three days without food.

Sam, sorry to hear about the low number of birds you've been able to get. I only wish we had more pheasant around here. Seems like decent habitat, at least around the borders of private/public land. I do need to get up behind the house a half mile or so where I found a covey of quail while deer hunting. Don't think I've ever seen anyone go up there after them.

Boomer and birdy, maybe they are cowbirds. MBBs? (medium brownish birds?)

Geno

Yes, brown headed cow birds, BHCBs. And common grackkes CGs. And maybe some BBBs.

SO...........you knew what they were and had us all guessing from a grainy, out of focus, picture?

Geezely crow.....................the only thing I have to say is.............









GFY

Geno