Our blessed ringnecks

There are moments--I'll admit as much--when I think I work out here at a decided disadvantage because things are often so big and so wide that nothing ever fits in a camera. I wanted to get some good pictures of the Missouri River yesterday, so I crept back home from Omaha, looking for spots to shoot.

It's mid-Farch right now, which means there just ain't no color. Oh sure, that azure sky is nothing to sneeze at if you hail from the Pacific Northwest; but the big, broad landscape I live in is right now a little boring. It's about as featureless the river--just a few non-descript gurgles. See that shot up there--it's the best I could do.

That's how it is you know some citizens of this landscape simply don't belong. We suffered three floods in our backyard last year, three too many. I really hope the Floyd behaves itself this spring because a floodless spring means those ring-necks in the grass should make a come back, give those cocky roosters a chance to create a population boom we'll gladly suffer out back. The hens too, of course.

This guy walked by our window a couple of days ago, even posed a bit before racing off, something pheasants do so well you'd think they were born to be sprinters.

You don't need Wikipedia to know this guy is no Great Plains native. Nothing else that beautiful will show up right about now, so when a rooster--or a gang of 'em--come around, as they've been doing, you put down your crossword puzzle. 

They're a mixed bag of gaudy effects-- a jet black head behind a bright red face, a saintly white collar, and then a harvest of leafy feathers in bronze mess up and over their bodies. Add an endless register of chevrons running up a tail that's sinfully showy--no bird should have a tail that ostentatious--and they're a pandemonium of color, visible proof that they shouldn't be here, that they're aliens, not in the least native, from somewhere in Asia, people say. 

Seems to me the Creator knew these guys would do well here, especially when dastardly winter kills off almost everything else. When it gets so cold the car won't start, our pheasants (and they've been long enough now--we can call them ours; they got documents)--our pheasants shut down their engines. They sit in place for a few days until a bright January sun throws off the cold. Smart too.

They're marvelous really, aren't they? And, in floodless years, they breed like rabbits. We look forward to the day when once again the field behind us is full of them, dozens and dozens. 

They're a wonder, not small either, big heavy-breasted aircraft packed with so much muscle that when they choose to, they go straight up like helicopters, no pussy-footing. They're not like ducks; they don't need a runway.

You can't help but love 'em any time of year, but they're a special blessing right now, when Farch is so blame colorless. When the snow melts and black ground begins to beg to be worked, when spectacle dawns are a hard to come by, a ringneck pheasant walking by can be a reminder that someday pasque flowers will once again adorn the hills.

I wonder if that was the deal originally. I wonder if the Heavenly Interior Decorator looked at the rural Midwest in that boring stretch of February and March, and said, "How 'bout I brighten things up a bit?--give you a bit of seasoning out back? How about a few ringnecks?"

What a blessing.