I’ve always loved ravens. I appreciate their intelligence, their adaptability and their association with myth and mystery in human folklore. I also enjoy their playfulness. But here in Utah the future is not looking bright for our two largest corvid species, the Common Raven and the American Crow.
Native to Asia, the Ring-necked Pheasant is one of the most successful introduced bird species in North America. They are exceptionally prized by hunters and may be the most studied game bird in the world. In Utah, as in much of their adopted range, their numbers are declining due to modern farming technologies and practices which are responsible for degradation of their preferred habitat (small farms with diversified crops and many patches of idle habitat). Collisions with vehicles are a major cause of pheasant mortality. In a Nebraska study, 7,195 (known) pheasants were killed by vehicles in a 439 mile section of Interstate 80 in 7 years. (I once hit a beautiful male pheasant while driving a very large U-haul truck at 65 mph. It glanced off the windshield, which definitely got my attention, then wedged in the side-mirror, which it broke. I expected to be charged for the mirror but the U-haul folks were fly fishermen and were so delighted to get the tail feathers for tying flies that they let me off with no charge). During winters with heavy snowfall and severe cold these birds require dense winter cover such as cattails in wetlands, which is part of the reason they do well at Farmington Bay WMA where these photos were taken recently. Because of the snow and bright sunshine my camera techs were all over the map and pretty meaningless so I’m not including them this time. These heavy-bodied birds are somewhat reluctant to fly so deep powdery snow presents some problems for them. Typically they push their bodies through…
