Spotted a rootster

If he were to find some of the released hens is there enough cover in the area to support them?
 
I think there is enough cover. There is warm and cool season grass along with woods and swampy areas. There is a good bit of farm fields but they will be worked over soon enough.
 
I still see this guy just about everyday. He is almost always haning out with 2 or 3 hens in the morning.
 
I was driving past the area and I got a picture of the rooster hanging out with a single hen. I think there are two more hens in the area around them.

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Doesn't look like he strayed to far from where you first spotted him. At this point those birds are as good as wild. They have found food and water, survived the winter, escaped predators...now if they could only pull off a successful brood!
 
It was the same area. I've seen him across the road a lot on the farm lane. But I think he had to move a little since the field was cut. It would be nice to see a brood from them. I'll start running the dogs in a month and see if they find anything. I'm now hearing a rooster from my back yard and it sounds like he would be a different bird from the direction the sound is coming from.
 
Adams County....that was once really loaded with wild birds!
 
Yes, it used to have a lot of birds. I only remember them from when I was very young, before I could hunt. Last week a member of the club where I release the birds told me the last wild quail he shot was taken on the club grounds in the late 50's or early 60's. That's about the time the quail numbers started to go down (from what I've been told). The pheasant numbers were still very good at that time and lasted into the early 80's from what I remember and heard. I guess being born in '74 was too late to enjoy the good bird hunting in the area.

I have a book that has short stories about bird hunting. One of the stories takes place in the area around Chambersburg/Gettysburg. The hunter was able to bag wild quail and grouse on the same hunt. Those would have been the days. I'm sure it would have been possible to get some pheasants in the same area. That would have been some game bag. Wild quail, grouse and pheasant!
 
My in-laws were leaving my house this evening and they called to say they saw a hen, rooster and a brood of 6 pheasant chicks crossing the road. First I ever heard of a brood in the area. I need to talk to the farmer who cut his wheat a few days ago to see if anything came out of the fields.
 
bauerline said:
My in-laws were leaving my house this evening and they called to say they saw a hen, rooster and a brood of 6 pheasant chicks crossing the road. First I ever heard of a brood in the area. I need to talk to the farmer who cut his wheat a few days ago to see if anything came out of the fields.
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That is awesome and I'm sure very exciting news! Hopefully the other hens not seen are tending to nest of their own. What are the odds of the hen seen with the brood being wild as apposed to one of your released birds?
 
I'm a 100% sure it is from a released bird. There are just no wild birds in the area. But at least there is enough cover in the area for the released birds.
 
Bingo! You hit the jack pot. A hatch in the wild from pen raised birds. I have seen it happen before, it is not impossible.
After six to twenty-four months of staying alive and avoiding predators (the dumb pen raised pheasants were eaten by predator by now) you should have a pretty "woodwise" wild pheasant on the loose.
It now becomes a game of chance on successfully getting a hatch off. As I recall around 71 pheasant got away of two years in a row, that is a large enough number to increase the odds of getting a hatch.

Some times it takes two years of staying alive for the old hens to mature and get lucy enough to get a hatch.
 
That's good news Brian, with all the CREP in parts of Pa. we've been hearing similar reports from around the state in areas that have not seen wild birds in years.

More good news, in areas that still have some wild birds the hatch seems to have been the best in years!
 
I think the spring has been good for a lot of the critters out there. Just around home here I have seen good numbers of baby geese, ducks, deer, rabbits, killdeer, herons and squirrels. I really want to see or hear about a quail brood. I just put in the new batch of quail in the JH's yesterday and maybe they will call something back. Glad to hear about the good bird numbers in your areas. I wonder how things are going in the wpra's?
 
I saw mother hen with her chicks myself today. The chicks looked to be about 5 or 6 weeks old. The old rooster is still in the area and I see him every morning. I tried to get a picture of the chicks but they were too far away for my phone camera. They ran into the tall grass when I tried to get closer. Tomorrow I'll take the better camera.
 
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