These pheasants are safe for a few more days.
The first photo shows the pheasant pen that’s been featured in the Mud Bay Blog a couple of times. The pheasants live there for a few weeks in September and October before being released for the fall upland game bird season. Interestingly the pen is on Wilkinson Road. Last Friday, when I took the photo, two pheasants had escaped but were nervously hanging out near the security of the pen almost as if they wanted back in. Did they instinctively fear the coming danger of nightfall when raccoons and coyotes would be out hunting in the rural Belfair valley where the pen is located? Death by critter or death by hunter. That’s the fate that awaits most of them.
The second photo, taken on Old Belfair Highway, shows a banded woolly caterpillar. If you don’t bike the rural back roads of Western Washington on warm fall days, it is difficult to convey how many are on the move this time of year. While riding on Elfendahl Pass Road last week, I saw one every 5 to 10 yards. The concentration on Old Belfair Highway wasn’t quite as high, but the mortality rate was off the charts. The mass migration leads to thousands being crushed under the tires of passing cars and trucks and a few by bikes. Switching to mountain bike tires would up the kill rate.
Why did the woolly caterpillar cross the road?
Mud Bay Blog 
In a book that I just finished there was a game a troop of boy scouts played called “Which would you rather…” The choices were decided more unpleasant when adults were not present. The pheasants choice would fit right in.