Pheasants fly to Mark Reinert's corn feeder, arriving from a slough to the south and a river bottom to the north of his 90 acres in McLeod County, just west of the Twin Cities.
"It's fun to watch,'' said Reinert, an avid pheasant hunter and president of the McLeod County chapter of Pheasants Forever.
He's among about 70 chapter members who are feeding pheasants this winter, trying to help the local ringneck population survive a long, cold and snowy winter. Others around the state, including about 60 Pheasants Forever members in the Willmar area, are doing the same.
"It's helping,'' Reinert said. "In key areas where people have feeders, they're still seeing birds.''
State wildlife officials in southern and western Minnesota say, yes, it's been a tough winter, but probably not a devastating one — yet — for pheasants. But because cattail sloughs, key wintering areas for pheasants, have filled in with snow, birds are more vulnerable now to a late-winter storm.
"The big thing has been the cold and wind, more than the snow,'' said Randy Markl, Department of Natural Resources area wildlife manager in Windom. But the winds also have blown open parts of some farm fields, allowing birds to peck for waste grain. Still, food is hard to come by.
"All in all, we haven't had any really big storms,'' Markl said. "We probably are faring OK. We see quite a few birds. It's just been a long, cold winter.''
Though feeding pheasants isn't Pheasants Forever's formal policy — officials with the national conservation group headquartered in White Bear Lake prefer food plots or habitat improvements — chapters are free to feed birds.