Right place, right time

We were driving down the country road that connects our little town to the next one - a winding little two lane road through corn fields and grazing land - when I saw what just HAD to be a pheasant standing on the side of the road. Right coloring, right profile for a pheasant... but I've never seen a pheasant in Washington outside of a State Fair pen with an earnest 4H-er standing by. How odd. So odd that I wondered if that is really what it could have been. Mark hadn't seen it, after all...

You know how it is sometimes, whizzing by at 60 mph.

We finished running the errand that had brought us out in the first place, and headed back home again - same road, opposite direction - about an hour later. Sure enough. There stood a pheasant by the side of the road.

Maybe not so odd though. On the OTHER side of the road, about 30 yards from where the bird was hanging out, was a place for hunters to park their trucks while they tramped through the fields with their dogs, trying to flush out ducks during fall hunting season. The pheasant was on the 'safe' side of the road, the hunters all heading in the opposite direction - open season 'over there,' safe harbor 'over here.'

A bird in the right place, at the right time.