Every winter they do a Christmas bird count up here, and this year, a ring neck pheasant was spotted. It had also been spotted over a month earlier, and therefore had clearly survived a week long cold snap where temps got down to 30-40 below zero. It appears to be surviving on choke cherries.
http://newsminer.com/view/full_stor...ise-of-Christmas-Bird-Count?instance=outdoors
They think it is a domestic bird that got out of it's pen, since they're not indigenous, and they haven't been introduced, and it's a pretty darned long flight for a pheasant.
This though, is evidence that a lot of these birds are a lot hardier than we expect.
Other birds in the count, many ravens, red poll finches, chickadees, pigeons, and mallards. But also a goshawk, (I didn't know they would winter over)
Magpies, gray jays, woodpeckers, shrikes, waxwings, nuthatches, ptarmigan, spruce hens, ruffed grouse, a couple other duck species (mostly goldeneye, and a merganser), and a few robins and juncos that forgot to migrate out.
Gives me confidence that my chickens will do fine in this climate.
http://newsminer.com/view/full_stor...ise-of-Christmas-Bird-Count?instance=outdoors
They think it is a domestic bird that got out of it's pen, since they're not indigenous, and they haven't been introduced, and it's a pretty darned long flight for a pheasant.
This though, is evidence that a lot of these birds are a lot hardier than we expect.
Other birds in the count, many ravens, red poll finches, chickadees, pigeons, and mallards. But also a goshawk, (I didn't know they would winter over)
Magpies, gray jays, woodpeckers, shrikes, waxwings, nuthatches, ptarmigan, spruce hens, ruffed grouse, a couple other duck species (mostly goldeneye, and a merganser), and a few robins and juncos that forgot to migrate out.
Gives me confidence that my chickens will do fine in this climate.
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