Yesterday I was walking my dog in the field in front of my house and we jumped a rooster pheasant like the one pictured above. I have always been intrigued with birds of all kinds but the male pheasant, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful birds on earth. The species was imported to North America in 1857 and has been a very popular gamebird ever since.
The fact that I have a wild pheasant walking around not 20 yards from my front door is like a dream come true for me. I grew up in the middle of Los Angeles--nowhere near pheasant country. And while Salem is no Yellowstone Park, I feel blessed to be able to live where Bald Eagles fly overhead; where I can see bull elk with massive antlers on my way home from work; where trout swim in streams only minutes away; and where bears and cougars are still walking around on the majestic mountain I can see so clearly from my living room sofa. If you would have told the 15-year old Don Lehnhof in smoggy L.A. that the above statements would come true, he would have been delerious for anticipation. I am truly lucky, and I thank Nature's Sunshine for providing the financial opportunity to allow me to live here, and I thank Susan's mom for allowing us to build on her land.
Today I was able to sneak away to visit a hunting preserve in Cedar Valley to tide me and my German Shorthair Pointer Smokey over for the long hunt-less summer. The weather was warm and we had a splendid day of pheasant hunting. Hunting with a pointing dog is so fascinating because you can see when the dog catches the first scent and then begins criss-crossing excitedly in front looking for the bird. No matter how tired he or I happen to be, our pace quickens because we know the explosion of color and beating wings can occur at any instant. But no matter how prepared you think you are, the flush is ALWAYS startling. As and added punctuation, a rooster pheasant often lets out a series of crows in the midst of a flush as if to add an exclamation point to his hasty departure. Of course things don't always go this well. In many cases the pheasant has elusively run ahead and flushed out of range. But if the stars align you experience a scene like the one below:
I am aware that many think hunting is barbaric and as I grow older I find myself wishing that I could do "catch and release" hunting as I do when fishing. I would love to be able to admire the irridescent purple, blue, crimson, and gold coloring of the cock pheasant, then set him back down to run off and fly again. One of the things I love about owning a pointing dog is that we can go out anytime (except for the spring breeding season) and "hunt" birds without a gun. Watching the scene above is a reward in itself.
