In rural South Dakota it is nearly as common to have a grouse, or a pheasant splattered on one’s grill, or heaven forbid, one’s windshield, like it is in most places to have the same encounters with bugs.
The grouse and the pheasant here, and they are the only ones that I can speak about with any authority, seem to be somewhat dimwitted. I don’t say this with an aide of condescension, but rather a fact deduced by many opportunities to study them. Both species tend to sit along the side of the road or, in the case of the grouse that I hit yesterday, while driving north on SD Highway 63, tend to casually walk out into the road while a vehicle is approaching, seemingly oblivious to the impending dangers. Then, when the vehicle is just upon them, they take flight: generally in the same direction that the vehicle is traveling, but at a much slower rate of speed, assuring a violent collision, and for the grouse, near certain death.
For the pheasant, however, they tend to remain on the edge of the road then perform one, or two acts: either they take off running, across the path of the approaching vehicle, en mass; (not just one, but several), like lemmings to the sea, or they remain hidden just off of the road’s edge, generally in tall grass in which they are obscured. Then they take flight in the same manner as those who run: across the path of the approaching vehicle. This tends to be more severe, as it tends to put them at windshield height by the time the impact occurs.
Earlier today, as I was driving back from a drive to the local post office in Eagle Butte, I saw a pheasant lying dead on the side of the road. I felt compelled to stop, but I wasn’t sure why. Regardless, I turned the Expedition around: which is no small undertaking on the backroads with snowdrifts piled high on the sides, and returned to the place where the dead pheasant lay. When I picked it up to move it, it was obvious that it had just recently been killed. Its body still limp from lack of rigor mortis, or the freezing temperatures having set in. I decided to make a photograph of it, a few in fact, because of its beauty. I also removed a few of its tail feathers, as a talisman I suppose, but even now I continue to feel odd about that decision. I’m not sure why. When I finished making the photographs I grabbed it by its feet and flung it further into the surrounding area so that nature could make use of its vacant carcass, especially in these cold temperatures where food is far more difficult to acquire, and is far more imperative to one’s survival.