Welcome residents

There are aliens among us. It’s really true. Both the gray partridge and the ring-necked pheasant are alien species. They are not native to this area – or even to North America. Yet they fit in so well that it seems as if they should always have been here.

Now, that’s not often the case with introduced species. Both the European starling and the house sparrow are birds that have done very well in North America after their transplantations from abroad, but neither is a welcome immigrant.

Two other aliens in our midst face mixed reviews. I think that everyone loves the little California quail. They are fun to watch and make an exciting game bird species. The wild turkey, however, is either loved or hated, depending upon your perspective. To their detractors, introduced wild turkeys are giant starlings.

The gray partridge and the ring-necked pheasant, however, are pleasant exceptions to the general rule that transplanted species do not make welcome residents. They, along with another introduced partridge, the chukar, are all emigrants from Eurasia and have fit in quite nicely.

Prior to arrival of the Eurasians, we already had a diverse assemblage of this group in North America. Variously referred to as game birds, upland birds, gallinaceous birds, or chickenlike birds, they are all members of the bird order Galliformes. It is, in fact, this group that gave rise to domestic chickens.

Our own North Idaho natives include three grouse – ruffed, blue, and spruce grouse – and the white-tailed ptarmigan – a bird you’ll have to go closer to Canada to find. All four of these are montane species with ruffed grouse inhabiting the foothills, blues and spruce higher up, and ptarmigan higher still.

Additional easily recognized birds in this group that you might encounter as aliens in our area include the North American wild turkey, peafowl (peacock and peahen) from India, and guinea fowl from Africa. The latter two are primarily barnyard species on this side of the globe.

The other nongrouse species in the galliformes – pheasants and partridge – have never been native to North America. The examples that you can find in Kootenai County are the gray partridge – often known by hunters as the Hungarian partridge, or hun – and the ring-necked pheasant – known by my grandfather as the China pheasant. In fact, who hasn’t seen a pheasant? Who hasn’t seen a pheasant in their back yard, especially during hunting season?

With the males in their painted-up faces, and both sexes with their relatively large size and long, pointed tails, they are hard to miss. And in the spring, when mating season is on, the males’ crowing is hard to miss, too. I couldn’t describe it, but I couldn’t mistake it for anything else either.

It is loud, as is the cackle they emit when startled into the air from the ground. If you’ve ever hunted pheasants, you know how unnerving that can be, even when you are expecting one to fly. I guess that’s why they do it. I think that it works pretty well. And of course they wait until you are standing quite close to them.

Years ago, my childhood best friend and I were hunting pheasants and he had one take off at his feet like that. It was too close to shoot, and as it flew it weaved back and forth as if dodging. At the appropriate range, Ray shot it and, upon inspection, we discovered that it flew weird because it had no tail. We retraced our steps and found its tail under Ray’s boot print in the grass.

Thus you can see just how reluctant to fly these birds of the ground are. For truly they would rather run than fly. Pheasants have been clocked at 20 mph on the ground, but when they do take off, it can be almost straight up, as a rocket. Their wings, as with all galliformes, are specially shaped for such lift-offs, but their muscles are not designed for sustained flight. Thus, when startled, they fly a short distance, drop to the ground, and run like hell.

I suppose that you noticed a few weeks ago that your turkey dinner was composed of dark meat around the legs and white meat in the breast. Breast muscles – the white meat – are the flight muscles. This muscle was light in color because it lacks quantities of myoglobin, the red pigment that stores extra oxygen for sustained muscle activity. It does, however, store lots of glycogen, a sugarlike compound quickly burned by muscle as fuel for fast take-offs. This muscle tires quickly, though.

Dark meat – the running muscles – have lots of the dark pigment. Dark meat also stores more fat for prolonged energy production, so avoid galliforme legs if you are on a reduced–fat diet. These dark muscles are well–adapted to long, fast runs.

Guess what type of meat you find in the breast muscle of a duck or goose. Their flight is long–distance and sustained, so it’s dark – high myoglobin, high fat, low glycogen – muscle.

Think about that the next time you eat at your local fast-food chicken establishment. But don’t despair, you’re not the only predator that loves a galliforme dinner. As far as most hawks, coyotes, foxes, and such are concerned, “galliforme – it’s what’s for dinner.” There’s a lot of good nutrition packed into those plump, round bodies, and everyone out there is after them.

But the pheasants are prepared. What do you do if lots of your chicks are going to get eaten? Produce lots of chicks. And that’s exactly what pheasants do. A hen may lay as many as two dozen eggs in a single nest, as well as depositing a few extra in everyone else’s nest in the area – pheasants and nonpheasants alike.

And when they hatch – the members of a clutch, laid over an extended period of time, all hatch within a few hours of each other – they hit the ground running. After running around for 12 days eating every bug in sight, they actually begin to fly. This, at least, makes predator dinnertime a bit more of a challenge.

Still, natural predation, combined with hunting seasons, has rendered pheasant populations in many areas dependent upon constant restocking by state game departments or private hunt clubs. When I grew up in the Willamette Valley, pheasants were pretty common around my grandfather’s farm, but we never saw a fox. Today foxes are relatively common, but the pheasants have disappeared.

Our other welcome alien is the gray partridge. It is my favorite of the group, ever since I saw my first covey in eastern Oregon during my college days. A group of us were out for a weekend drive through the snowy back roads of the wheat country. We drove around a bend and surprised some grays in the middle of the road. They immediately flew because we were so close, but not out into the open field.

Instead, they flew directly into a roadside snow bank. Just that quick, they were totally buried. That was so neat, or cool, or whatever. It wasn’t much of a look, but with their rusty–red, stubby little tails, there was no missing the identification. They were not quail.

My first encounter with gray partridge in North Idaho made me glad that I usually bird alone. I had been told that partridge could be found on the Rathdrum Prairie. I had also discovered that, al least without a bird dog, partridge do not show well against the agricultural fields that they frequent.

Gray partridge are birds of open fields, as long as there is a little cover somewhere nearby for nesting season. A fence row or overgrown ditch will do just fine. Most of the year they are out in the open, but blending well with their surroundings.

They are also family–oriented birds. Unlike the harem-keeping male pheasants, male partridge stick with one mate, often from year to year. And as winter comes on, the family from the summer nesting season sticks together, even joining with other family flocks. Not realizing this trait, I went looking for partridge the way I would a pheasant.

I was looking for either a lone male sneaking out across an open field, or a few females, heads up, watching the world go by. So, until it snowed, I saw nothing. When it did snow, I went out looking for the little pheasants, but was again disappointed. No birds out running around.

There were, however, lots of projecting clods in the plowed fields where the snow was beginning to melt off. There was even one set of exposed, rounded rocks not far from the road. But they just weren’t quite right. I paused just slightly, enough to give my intentions away, and the rocks burst into flight.

Since that inauspicious North Idaho welcome, I have routinely found my gray partridge, early in the new year, by looking for exposed rocks in the fields of Rathdrum Prairie. I have never been close enough to tell the difference between males and females as they flew, but that tell-tale tail gives them away as partridge.

Over most of their present range, these small aliens are doing pretty well. I fear, though, for their continued comfort in Kootenai County. The Rathdrum Prairie is their ideal homeland away from their homeland. But lots of other aliens think so, too. I recently read in the paper about how fast Post Falls is growing, and how the prairie is shrinking.

Pheasants will always be with us in North Idaho. But I fear that we are on the verge of alienating our other alien. It may not be long before, with or without snow, you won’t be able to find your gray partridge for the year on the Rathdrum Prairie. That would not be a nice ending for one which has fit in so well, and has been such a good neighbor to all the rest of us who are not native to North Idaho, either.