Thursday, May 1, 2008

Click for a larger pic.

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. I went back to David Weld Sanctuary this morning to try my luck at getting a shot of a Ring-necked Pheasant. And lucky is what I got. After hiking the short loop (I’m not crazy about the long loop – it brings you very close to some back yards), I was going to see about going into the field where I saw one yesterday. On the way I spied two hens taking cover from me in some Timothy (tall brown grass). I took a few shots but the birds were in good cover.

Meanwhile, as I’m shooting, I’m hearing a rustling behind me which I take to be a squirrel in the undergrowth. Pheasants are cooler than squirrels, (no offense to you squirrel huggers), so I pay it no mind. When the two hens were out of sight I turn and this guy is ten feet away and coming out into the open. I think he was deliberately trying to distract me from his family. I’ve seen quail (I assume they were Bobwhites) do the same thing. I can’t say for certain that distraction was his intention but that’s the feeling I had. I was glad enough to get the shots.

This is one of the hens. They do a better job of blending in than their mates. JK