Winter 2012-2013

[Scott M]

We just got a foot of snow up north, but to this point, it's not been a bad winter for birds. Some snow for grouse to burrow into up north, and very little snow in the southern part of the state for pheasants to deal with. We might come out okay, most of February and March to go yet but so far, so good!

[IceHawk]

Hopefully this last big dump doesnt hurt them been seeing a pile of birds all winter and they looked real healthy! It was a good season this yr and if they make it the rest of the year going to be real good next fall

[muskiemanAD]

Was out by Hutchinson 2 weeks ago and went to a spot that is cattails to auger threw the ice and pound a few Woody houses in. The birds were defiantly in the cattails and tons of them. The predators seemed to know this too as there were tracks everywhere with a few dead/eaten birds around. We probably kicked 200 birds out so that was very promising...

[IceHawk]

Yah the predators have the upper hand with the deeper snow. We have been trying to help out the pheasant population. We took out 33 coyotes so far this yr with the hounds looking to add alot more to the final number!

[monstermoose78]

I have been seeing so many pheasants around princeton area lately. I saw a bunch of about 60 yesterday on my way to my inlaws. Everyday on my way to st cloud I have been seeing a few on 95. Saw a couple today on county road 9 on my way to baxter lake. They seem to be every where.

[BLACKJACK]

Not a good sign when you're seeing them on the roads, they're looking for food, the roads are the only bare spots, and now you'll start seeing road killed pheasants.

[Gordie]

I drive to Pine City a few times a week and I run the back roads and since December I have the pleasure of seeing 30 to 100 pheasants each trip the most I have counted is 143 in a one way trip. Thats about 60 miles . Lately on my return trips in the late afternoon the birds are picking pebbles off the shoulders of the roads and at times the birds are lined up like dominnos. The fields where I have been seeing them feed in the mornings are routed up really good holes dug to earth and once in awhile the birds are popping up and down out of the holes. Like the whack a mole game crosses my mind.

This past Saturday on my return trip I saw a spot with 8 roosters and less than twenty feet away on the ground was a bald eagle, I'm assuming that the eagle was having pheasant for it's meal and the other phrsants were to busy eating they're meal to notice.

[Gordie]

Not a good sign when you're seeing them on the roads, they're looking for food, the roads are the only bare spots, and now you'll start seeing road killed pheasants.

Picking gravel for they're gizzard

[Scott M]

Seeing a lot more lately...5 roos this a.m. pickin gravel.

[otterman91105]

It's seems like in the last week since the weather has warmed up they are all over. I have seen a ton of them hope most of them made it through the winter.

[workin4bait]

I have been seeing many hens dead in the ditches. The only place for them to get grit is alongside the road and people are in to big of a hurry to get where they are going to give them room.

Workin'

[Scott M]

Drove through SW Minnesota on Saturday and there wasn't much for snow anywhere. Tough if you are making payments on a snowmobile I suppose, but should be good for the birds. I saw one rooster tucked into some frosty Indian grass, all puffed out. He looked like a hawk sitting there from a distance. It was such a gorgeous morning, 4 degrees with no wind and sunny, the whole scene encased in hoarfrost, and this guy standing out against a light background. Wish I had a camera at the ready.

[Gordie]

Friday on my way home from Pine City I usually see Pheasants in this one particular spot on the side of the road or in a feild; I didnt notice any and as I looked up the road a Bald Eagle sailed over the towering pines and flew towards me. I looked at it and noticed tail feathers of a rooster protruding out the back, under the tail feathers of the eagle, the eagle had a nice rooster in the clutches of its talons; as I thought well eagles have to eat too I noticed another big bird of in the distance on a tree line and it was a imature eagle and farther down the the tree line perched in a mighty oak was another adult eagle and I thought ,mom and dad teaching junior how to hunt pheasants.

I wish I could have seen the dive bomb and capture of that pheasant from the eagle. That pheasant did not look very big in the claws of that eagle either This spot was not far from where I had seen that eagle about a month ago eating next to the feeding pheasnts.