There's a semi-tame male pheasant which has been visiting our garden for the last five years. For alliterative reasons, we have named him Philip.
Philip seems to think he owns our garden, and gets decidedly pissed off if other birds start eating the bread that we have quite clearly left out just for him. When we neglect to leave out any bread for him, Philip comes to the window and stares in at us in an intimidating manner. If we ignore him, he starts pecking at the glass. Philip has got a bit of an attitude. I like that in a pheasant.
You might wonder why I put up with such nonsense from a wild bird. To be honest, similar thoughts have crossed my own mind. Then, yesterday afternoon, I saw something which made me realise that pampering Philip had not gone unrewarded. It was a sight that cheered me up for the rest of the day: one of the neighbourhood cats running terrified from our garden, with a very pissed off pheasant in hot pursuit!
Attaboy, Philip!
See also: Pheasant surprise
We've got what we thought were a couple of male Black Grouse in the garden. One is determined to mate with another male pheasant and the other is just very tame and struts around the garden. We were very proud of our Black Grouse but found out yesterday that they are actually Japanese Pheasants - anyone know anything about Japanese Pheasants?? The way they act I'm surprised the species has lasted this long!
STENSE! I just knew that if anything would make you de-lurk, it would be a piece about pheasants. Don't know anything about the Japanese variety, except that they have quite a few at Clatterbridge Hospital, apparently.
Oh, I tell a lie: I do know one interesting thing about Japanese pheasants... The two Japanese pheasants which appear at the beginning of Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress were the inspiration for R2-D2 and C-3PO in Star Wars.
Oh, no, that's right, they were peasants.