Great photo Maynard of that young male pheasant. Your place looks like a "Garden of Eden" for wild critters. That photo reminds me of the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words". For starters check out that lush green vegetation forbs and grasses, thanks to the spring and summer rain. A lot of fat juicy insects live in that kind of vegetation.
Next, if that photo was taken around Aug. 8, the colors on that young rooster should put him around 12 to 13 weeks old. That means that he hatched between May 1 and May 7, 2015, an early hatch. Warm March 2015 temp. set us up for early initiation of mating activity. Look at map below:
http://www.weather.com/forecast/national/news/spring-fever-warm-up-midwest-march2015
Wild pheasant ( if nutritional and moisture along with undisturbed nesting cover is available) do indeed have a "second hatch".
Google: "Experimental Pheasant Restoration Project" go to page 49 and on the middle of that page on the section on Nesting the article will discuss "Double-Brooding" or second hatch.
A copy of page 49 below:
"Survival of the radio-marked population may not be indicative of the entire population. Collars could have negatively impacted survival as observed from field notes and winter roadside surveys. During the first year, radiocollared populations comprised 8.0% and 13.6% of the population of released pheasants for Centre and Juniata Counties, respectively. During winter roadside surveys, however, only 0.05-3% and 0-0.2% of the observed birds were radio-marked in Centre and Juniata Counties, respectively. These low proportions of radiocollared pheasants in the survey results help substantiate our belief that radio-marked birds exhibited lower survival than actual survival of the uncollared population.
Nesting
Ring-necked pheasants typically begin egg-laying in early April and continue throughout the summer, even until September in Britain (Hill and Robertson 1988). Our findings agree with those of Hill and Robertson (1988). However, during both years, ringnecks began egg-laying 5-7 days prior to Sichuans. The slight delay in Sichuan egg-laying corresponds with observations on our game farms (C. Reigner, personal communication).
According to Hill and Robertson (1988), average ringneck clutch size is approximately 11 eggs with early clutches often being much larger. Our results support those of Hill and Robertson (1988) with Sichuans tending to have slightly smaller clutch sizes than ringnecks.
Nesting success typically is highly variable, between 10-51% (Hill and Robertson 1988). However, Potts (1980) suggested that nest success of partridges may be density-dependent in that proportionally more nests are lost in high density populations than those with low density. Population densities in our study areas still are low which may be a reason for the average to good nesting success.
Only in 1994 was the predation rate on ringneck nests significantly higher than Sichuan nests. Overall, more Sichuans abandoned nests than ringnecks, 22.2% versus 5.0%, respectively. This marked difference between nest abandonment and nest predation may be a behavioral difference between subspecies. Sichuans are stressed easier than ringnecks and could be more likely to abandon a nest at the first sign of disturbance, possibly to avoid predation.
Of particular interest, several pheasants of both subspecies produced second broods after successfully hatching a nest in 1994. One Sichuan hen was still brooding her first hatch, which was approximately 6 weeks old, when she began laying her second clutch in fallow field habitat. Two ringneck hens also attempted second broods. During 1995, only 2 ringneck hens attempted double brooding. This behavior of double-brooding also has been noted in New York (Penrod et al. 1982). Double-brooding may be density-dependent such that during periods of low population densities, females will produce more than one brood in a season in an attempt to quickly increase population levels.
The high percentage of initial nesting attempts in nonagricultural habitats could be due to very poor habitat conditions in agricultural areas in early spring. Essentially, the only cover for nesting during early spring was in nonagricultural areas. However, if an initial nest failed and the hen renested, the likelihood of the hen establishing the nest in agricultural areas, especially haylands, increased. Ringnecks were significantly more likely to renest in agricultural areas than Sichuans. Most haylands in Pennsylvania are planted to cool season species. Cool season grasses are often cropped late in the fall, leaving little time for new growth before becoming dormant. Because no spring nesting cover is available in hayfields, hens are forced to nest in nonagricultural habitats, which contain marginal herbaceous cover. If this first nest is predated, hayfields become attractive sites for renesting, due to spring growth. However, there often is not enough time for a hen to lay her clutch and"
49
This year was the perfect storm of condition for some pheasants to have a second hatch.