Pheasant Hunting

I like pheasants. I like their green heads and dramatic tail feathers. And smaller than a turkey, bigger than a quail, it always impressed me that a bird the size and shape of a bowling ball could fly.
That said, I felt genuine remorse when I hit one on the way to work this morning.
It was one of those situations where you see something start to cross the road in front of your car and you don’t have time to stop or swerve, just a split second to think “This is going to be ugly”.
Maybe if he’d ducked, he’d have had a chance. But instead, he took flight at the last second and caught the inside corner of the car, knocking my side mirror inward. I cursed, and checked my rear mirror to see a cloud of feathers. Why did it have to be a pheasant? I like pheasants.
Nothing to do now but wait for karma and Mother Nature to take their revenge on me for wiping out one of nature’s most interesting birds.