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Status of Pheasants in the UK (1 Viewer)

E

Earnest lad

Well-known member
One appreciates that the common pheasant is by no means a rare bird. Like all birders, I have seen many in my life, and it has long been on my "tick" list.
However one has discovered/realized that this species is very widely bred in captivity and then released (for hunting purposes).
It made me wonder: how would I ever know whether a bird I have seen is a truly wild bird or, maybe just a bird bred in captivity that was set free. There surely is no way to tell the difference.
If the latter cases are in the majority - how can I say I have twitched a genuine pheasant?
Does anyone know if there actually are any genuine wild pheasants breeding in the wild in the UK?
Any comments in this would be much appreciated please. I have actually deleted the pheasant from my list of birds ticked off.
 
Answer: you can't be sure. And the same for Red-legged Free-range Chickens. Yes, both species do breed in the wild in Britain with varying degrees of success, so there are 'tickable' individuals out there. But they are as you guessed, not distinguishable.

Best hope is to go to somewhere remote from any shooting estates, and hope to find a Pheasant there - but it won't be easy (either to find any places, or once found, to find a Pheasant!).
 
Probably searching of hunting sources would produce a good map which Pheasant populations are self-sustaining, and where fresh releases predominate.

It could be an interesting exercise for ecology, alas, I don't know of anybody who did it.
 
I too am a member of the 'if in doubt, don't tick' club. However, we're not talking about a Snow Goose or a Black Duck here. The Common Pheasant is a British breeding bird and not to tick it might throw your entire life list into doubt. For example, a Barn Owl is also a British breeding bird, but how do you know your Barn Owl hadn't escaped from a falconry centre after being hand reared from a chick. In the Vale of Belvoir (pronounced Beeva) shooting grounds near me, you can see pheasants any time of the year, mostly in pairs and, in the spring in family groups, not just in the shooting grounds but spread far and wide across open farmland. I find it inconceivable that these birds aren't breeding naturally in the wild. As for the captive process for shooting purposes, my understanding is, the birds are kept in wooded areas behind open, un-topped fences (so they can fly out when fledged, but rats can't get in at the feeders). In my garden I provide nestboxes and hung feeders so vermin can't get at the food, but I wouldn't call the birds that take advantage of these, captive bred. It's a grey area Kasfig and I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. In my life list, Pheasant remains ticked.
 
Have the best of both Worlds. Count Pheasant on your British list because everyone else does, but wait until you see a genuine wild bird in Asia before counting it on your World list.
 
Thanks everyone for informative comments: I guess that sums it up. It depends on ones criteria is for a "tick".
One could argue that even the birds that breed outside captivity are merely "feral". And, as stated, one presumably would have to go to Asia to see a "proper" wild bird (that's the one I would like to see.

Also: point taken : it's exactly the same with the red-legged partridge.

Furthermore, the grey partridge where I live is bred in captivity before getting released, and I imagine the birds seen are from this origin too.

It's just my decision for my own "world list" but these species are now "unticked" until any further developments occur . ;)
 
kasfig said:
Thanks everyone for informative comments: I guess that sums it up. It depends on ones criteria is for a "tick".
One could argue that even the birds that breed outside captivity are merely "feral". And, as stated, one presumably would have to go to Asia to see a "proper" wild bird (that's the one I would like to see.

Also: point taken : it's exactly the same with the red-legged partridge.

Furthermore, the grey partridge where I live is bred in captivity before getting released, and I imagine the birds seen are from this origin too.

It's just my decision for my own "world list" but these species are now "unticked" until any further developments occur . ;)
Click to expand...

There will be no further developments. Pheasants are non-native to Britain, they are reared and released. There will never be a vagrant wild Pheasant. The best you could hope for is for shooting to cease, breeding and releasing to cease and see one that is x number of generations bred in the wild without human intervention, but it will still be from introduced stock.

Tick it and forget it, or take a stand and do not count any Cat C species; Little Owl, Capercaillie etc.
 
Hi,

Bismarck Honeyeater said:
Pheasants are non-native to Britain, they are reared and released.
Click to expand...

In Germany, it's not unusal to see a female leading a group of chicks, and so far, I have always assumed that these were indicative of Pheasants breeding in the wild.

Thinking about it now, it occurs to me that I don't actually know when the releases take place and how old the birds are at the time of the release ...

Regards,

Henning
 
[QUOTE As for the captive process for shooting purposes, my understanding is, the birds are kept in wooded areas behind open, un-topped fences (so they can fly out when fledged, but rats can't get in at the feeders). In my garden I provide nestboxes and hung feeders so vermin can't get at the food, but I wouldn't call the birds that take advantage of these, captive bred. It's a grey area Kasfig and I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. In my life list, Pheasant remains ticked.[/QUOTE]

Traditionally this may have been the case but now thousands if not millions, are hatched and reared in game farms before being sold as poults to shoots who then put them in the pens you describe, so farmed not just helped out I'm afraid.
 
Hauksen said:
In Germany, it's not unusal to see a female leading a group of chicks, and so far, I have always assumed that these were indicative of Pheasants breeding in the wild.
Click to expand...

Yes, quite a few females succeed in hatching young; but bear in mind that released birds have zero experience of parenting, so it's likely that very few of those young survive to fledging. The question you need to answer is, Do enough wild-hatched young survive to replace the natural predation and shooting losses? In many cases, the answer is probably 'No', and in the absence of further releases, the feral population would die out in a few years.

Hauksen said:
Thinking about it now, it occurs to me that I don't actually know when the releases take place and how old the birds are at the time of the release ...
Click to expand...

Only 2 or 3 weeks before the shooting season starts, I think?

I've heard of shooting estates where the keeper had to walk in front of the guns, pick uo the pheasant poults by hand, and throw them into the air for the shooters, because they were too tame and reluctant to fly.
 
It is estimated that 2.3 million pairs of Common Pheasant breed in the UK,

40 million captive breed birds are released each year.

So the chances of a particular bird being "native" born is unlikely at this time of the year and given that 15% or so of the birds survive the shooting season even during the summer the likelihood is low.
 
Hi,

Nutcracker said:
Do enough wild-hatched young survive to replace the natural predation and shooting losses? In many cases, the answer is probably 'No', and in the absence of further releases, the feral population would die out in a few years.
Click to expand...

The "Atlas of German Breeding Birds" shows a slight increase of Pheasant populations since about 2000, but notes that interpretation of figures in difficult since information on releases is incomplete. Some areas in Eastern Germany have lost their local populations, so it looks as if these were not self-supporting ...

Regards,

Henning
 
There is a small, and probably diminishing, number of wild Pheasant shoots in the UK where no birds are reared. Whilst populations are kept reasonably high by predator control, habitat management and winter feeding, numbers shot can't compare to large scale reared shoots. Of course, there's nothing to stop released birds straying from surrounding shoots.

There are no reared pheasant shoots in my immediate area of north Cheshire yet Pheasant aren't difficult to come by - I flushed five juveniles and a female from a landfill site only yesterday.
 
Last edited:
There an introduced species anyway... Technically not a British species at all.. I tend to feel if it were not for the tens of thousands or more introduced into the wild each year they probably wouldn't exist in the British countryside.. Foxes would have wiped them out... Personally I wish they wouldn't release them... I'm sick and tire of the hunting fraternity wiping out our native species of birds of prey just so they can kill them for pleasure... They don't even eat them anymore (no one wants to eat a carcass full of lead).. Instead they bury the carcasses in pits and leave them to rot... Disgusting... it should be banned...
 
Hauksen said:
Is lead shot still in common use in the UK? As far as I know, it has been banned in some German states at least.
Click to expand...
Yes. Our Govt. point blank refused to consider a petition to ban lead shot, even though low toxicity alternatives are widely available and reasonably cheap.
 
Hi,

Nutcracker said:
Yes. Our Govt. point blank refused to consider a petition to ban lead shot, even though low toxicity alternatives are widely available and reasonably cheap.
Click to expand...

Hm, upon further reading, it seems that the German bans mostly apply to rifle ammunition, and I'm not really sure about the status of lead shot.

It seems there is the political will to do something against lead shot in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at least ... they have the largest population of White-tailed Eagle in Germany, and these more or less regularly suffer from lead poisoning caused by shot in their food. These probably stem from carrion not picked up by hunters, but I believe also from waterfowl that swallowed lead shot when feeding in areas where hunting is common.

Regards,

Henning
 
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