Jan 162009
When I first moved in this place in 2004, the environs around my house were *lousy* with pheasants. Horrible screechy critters they are. When the local cats realized that my house was the place to be, the pheasants moved on (or were moved on). But now that winter’s here, they’ve come back in force, as loud and dumb as ever. The one bit of evidence foa thought process I’ve seen is that they scatter when a human approaches. But they *don’t* scatter when a car approaches, even if they are in the middle of the road. Of course, once the car’s gone… there’ buckets of pheasant bits, scattered all over the road.
7 Responses to “Dumbest Birds Ever”
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mmm, in Italy when pheasants cross a car, the driver flashes them, they freeze and got caught and eaten (after appropriate preparation…) . That’s why Italian pheasants are VERY shy of humans…
Yeah, they act the same way up here in North Dakota.
A lot of times the male pheasants cross the road first… if they make it, then the female and offspring will follow.
Now if the cats could be trained to kill and retrieve the pheasants, both you and they would have source of really good tasting meat.
Time to google some pheasant recipes and load the rifle. 🙂
> Now if the cats could be trained to kill and retrieve the pheasants
I’m pretty sure they’ve got Phase 1 of that plan worked out. Phase 2 would likely seem an alien concept to ’em.
> in Italy when pheasants cross a car, the driver flashes them, they freeze and got caught and eaten
A few years back an SUV slammed into a deer right in front of my house, well after sundown. I heard the crash, looked outside to see what was up, but only saw the SUV tear-assing off into the distance in an apparent panic. Went out with a flashlight and found a mangled deer wrapped around my mailbox. As I was standing there like an idiot trying to figure out what in the hell to do with a busted deer, another car pulls up. Fella wanted to know what happened, and when explained that the event was sufficiently recent that the deer was still twitching, he wanted to know if he could have it. Sure. What the hell would I do with a busted deer?
It’s my understanding, though, that roadkill deer is not all that good. You cap the deer in the head or heart, it dies cleanly. You smack it with a ton of automobile, all it’s organs burst and spill whatever they have into the blood, mucking up the meat.
Bleah.
Given the less that spotless condition of the roadkill pheasants I’ve seen, I can’t imagine that *their* meat is all that good either.
Don’t knock it!
One of the standard means of cats showing they belong to a social group that includes their owners is dragging back prey they have caught and depositing it before their owners.
You treat them right as the human Alpha-Cat, and they’ll treat you right also.
True that last, though somewhere along the way most of us that are ‘owned’ by cats have managed to lose the top position and are now regarded as the “getters-of-food,” “cleaners-of-the-litter-box,” and “skritchers-of-the-desired-location-upon-demand” rather than ANY type of “alpha” mamal.
On the other hand they know that if “I” don’t get around to it they need to go to my wife and bug HER till she makes me do the required work so I guess they HAVE figured out who’s in charge…
Randy