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WOW! A first, and a wonderful surprise (1 Viewer)

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songbird6666

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Sorry for starting a new thread, but I'm so excited, I didn't want to just add it to the Whats Been In your garden thread. I just came out of my top shed and nearly fainted from shock - there was an amazing, beautiful cock pheasant in my garden, eating from the ground bird feeder! Now I know they aren't exactly rare, but I think in eleven years of living in Wales, I have only ever seen one once, in a country lane nowhere near here. To come out and find one on the lawn was gobsmackingly wondrous! He ran down and hid on the compost heap when he saw me, and I got a bigger dish of seed and shook and called, and then just left it and walked away, ran in to get the camera. When I looked he'd eaten, ventured further up the garden towards the back door, and as I opened the door, he took off and flew east over the rooftops. I hope he comes back. Just spoke to the neighbour and he says he's heard him around for a while, so hopefully he will return. :bounce:

Does anyone know if they are okay with chickens? I have one hen and a bantam cockerel (who is quite big as bantams go) and I don't want any aggro, I get enough of that as it is!
 
Nice one - any new bird is exciting. I was as chuffed by a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker on my local patch as I was my most of the lifers I've seen. More so than with the Lesser Scaup I saw earlier in the year.
 
If there is food available, believe me, he will be back! Bringing his friends too! I started off with one male, then a female arrived. Pretty soon, there were half a dozen, then a dozen, the several dozen! Most I had was 41, but this has now leveled off to between 20 and 30 each and every day.

The latest edition is a Reeves pheasant (female), no doubt an escapee, but she now stays here every day. You will soon discover they become used to you in a short space of time. They learn very very quickly to associate you with food!
 
Oh fantastic - well I can live in hope. But I only have a small garden! I'm on the edge of a small cul-de-sac with a farm field down one side of the garden, bordered by trees and a bank, but surrounded by houses and bungalows on the three other sides.
 
I live on a housing estate with a tiny garden! Luckily I'm next to a copse with the bird table etc out the front of the house and next to farmland. If they don't come to the feeding stations I still always see them in the fields!
 
songbird said:
Sorry for starting a new thread, but I'm so excited, I didn't want to just add it to the Whats Been In your garden thread. I just came out of my top shed and nearly fainted from shock - there was an amazing, beautiful cock pheasant in my garden...!
Click to expand...
Your lovely post took me back to the early years of our marriage in the mid 70s. We heard such a racket and kerfuffle and rushed outside - our pet cat had brought a cock pheasant on to the patio and clearly had bitten off more than it could chew (sorry about the metaphor)...

Anyway, no harm came to the pheasant at all - the cat received a good pecking from the pheasant and a good telling off from us!
 
Since I started feeding the birds with more than just peanuts in February, we have had a cock pheasant visit EVERY day, several times each day!

There are lots of pheasants near me which are fed by gamekeepers so I am not impressed when I see him eating my bird seed......I often run out into the garden to chase him away.... I am very relieved he hasn't started to bring his "friends" with him! :flyaway:

Val
 
songbird said:
Sorry for starting a new thread, but I'm so excited, I didn't want to just add it to the Whats Been In your garden thread. I just came out of my top shed and nearly fainted from shock - there was an amazing, beautiful cock pheasant in my garden, eating from the ground bird feeder! Now I know they aren't exactly rare, but I think in eleven years of living in Wales, I have only ever seen one once, in a country lane nowhere near here. To come out and find one on the lawn was gobsmackingly wondrous! He ran down and hid on the compost heap when he saw me, and I got a bigger dish of seed and shook and called, and then just left it and walked away, ran in to get the camera. When I looked he'd eaten, ventured further up the garden towards the back door, and as I opened the door, he took off and flew east over the rooftops. I hope he comes back. Just spoke to the neighbour and he says he's heard him around for a while, so hopefully he will return. :bounce:

Does anyone know if they are okay with chickens? I have one hen and a bantam cockerel (who is quite big as bantams go) and I don't want any aggro, I get enough of that as it is!
Click to expand...

they are such a stunning bird, good job!
 
Yesterday morning I had the male Pheasant and three of his female companions out for a while! They were the only ones that didn't try and get away when a Sparrowhawk swooped down at the birds!
 
We have had Wild Turkey and Northern Bobwhites venture through our residential yard here in Saint Joseph, Missouri, but never a pheasant! Still waiting, but I do not think it will happen any time soon!

We never know what will put in an appearance. One time we had an American Woodcock land in our backyard, probe around in the mud a little and then fly off. The only one to be seen in our yard in 30 years at our current location!
 
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