Ring-necked Pheasant

I had a fun surprise last week.  I watched from my car as two male Ring-necked Pheasants came strutting out of the bushes into a gravel parking lot.  There may be no other bird in Pennsylvania that rivals the intricate, colorful plumage of a male pheasant, accented by the bright red skin on its face, bold white collar, and the long striped tail.  They barely reacted as I rolled my window down and pointed my camera lens in their direction.

Although Ring-necked Pheasants are a familiar bird here in Pennsylvania, they’re not native to our continent.  Until recent centuries, they were only found across southern Asia, from China and Korea to the southeastern edges of Europe.  Today there are hundreds of millions of pheasants worldwide, and they live in North and South America, Europe, New Zealand, and even Hawaii (in addition to their original range in Asia).  This remarkable range expansion was accomplished by people capturing pheasants and introducing them to new areas, largely because of their popularity with hunters.

In North America, pheasants were first introduced in 1882.  They’ve done quite well here overall, and they’re found across most of the United States and southern Canada, especially in the Midwest and northern Great Plains.  However, Pennsylvania’s population is no longer self-sustaining.  Almost all pheasants you see these days in Pennsylvania were raised in captivity, then released for hunting.  The two pheasants that posed for me fall into that category.  You can tell by the way they walked out into an open parking lot right in front of me.