Yesterday, early, I was busy with something and the TV was on in the background. I heard the very tale end of a piece involving ‘Oregon’, ‘Pheasants’, ‘Denny’ in 1880’s. I didn’t get the gist of the piece beyond ‘introduced’. This morning, I found a brief historical piece by Kit Oldham at HIstory.Link describing the introduction of China’s Ringneck Pheasants to Oregon & Washington. Today, they seem to be a natural part of the landscape. Much like many Trout species not native to an area, the Pheasant was not native to the U.S. Today, of course, we use feathers from the birds for fly tying & fishing. The link provides an interesting story.

Dette Fly Tying Materials
A Pheasant Tail Nymph (U.S. version) tied with natural feather fibers.
Owen & Gertrude Denny traveled to China on U.S. diplomatic business and sent back pheasants to Port Townsend, Washington and then to their home in Oregon.