Lady Amherst's Pheasant, Bedfordshire (1 Viewer)

[Jeremy Gloucestershire]

A bird has reported on an almost daily basis since mid-December. I'd love to see it .....but please note, I understand and have read all the stuff about provenance etc so please let's not start all that up. Whether it is tickable or not is not an issue for me. I'd just like to see one. If anyone can simply help with some information about where the bird has been seen (and any tips e.g. best time of day etc), I'd be very grateful. Many thanks.

 

[condor1992]

The bird is at Manor Park, Flitwick. If you park somewhere along Church Road and walk down the A5120 towards Flitvale garden center, you will pass a gate right before a bridge over a small river and near the sign 'Flitwick Manor'. Enter the forest and take the first trail which goes right to walk through a narrow strip of forest running along the A5120. The pheasant has been seen along this area of wood, particularly the area near a wooden bridge towards the end of the forest.
Be warned that this bird is very shy and extremely difficult to see, I cannot emphasise that word enough. You will understand why when you get there. Rhododendrons are all over the place, and the thick understorey make it a worst-case scenario for a bird which is known to be extremely shy and difficult to observe in the wild. If you quietly keep to the path and walk back and forth along it whilst watching the bushes close to the road, you should find it eventually. It took me 1hr 30 mins to get the photo below. Some spent three hours looking and then only saw it, whereas others never saw it after hours of searching. This may be the last chance to see this bird in its "natural" range. I have a feeling when this bird goes, that's it for the UK.
Good luck.

 

[Mono]

It is also the oldest recorded Lady Amhurst's Pheasant!

 

[pbjosh]

I'm an outsider to this conversation but I sort of follow the British birding scene for the fascination with minutiae and the attention to detail and twitching and stories and all, it is entertaining.

Just one person's $.02, but put me very firmly in the camp of cynics who suggest that there is no way that this bird was hiding for 6 years or however long it was. IF it was as hard to observe as suggested, how did it suddenly go from unobserved for 6 years to being seen by many observers, each of who struggled for up to a few hours or days at a time? Occam's Razor and all...

 

[Mono]

It is the same with me. I've no skin in the game, I'm just being a good Bayesian.

 

[Jeremy Gloucestershire]

The bird is at Manor Park, Flitwick. If you park somewhere along Church Road and walk down the A5120 towards Flitvale garden center, you will pass a gate right before a bridge over a small river and near the sign 'Flitwick Manor'. Enter the forest and take the first trail which goes right to walk through a narrow strip of forest running along the A5120. The pheasant has been seen along this area of wood, particularly the area near a wooden bridge towards the end of the forest.
Be warned that this bird is very shy and extremely difficult to see, I cannot emphasise that word enough. You will understand why when you get there. Rhododendrons are all over the place, and the thick understorey make it a worst-case scenario for a bird which is known to be extremely shy and difficult to observe in the wild. If you quietly keep to the path and walk back and forth along it whilst watching the bushes close to the road, you should find it eventually. It took me 1hr 30 mins to get the photo below. Some spent three hours looking and then only saw it, whereas others never saw it after hours of searching. This may be the last chance to see this bird in its "natural" range. I have a feeling when this bird goes, that's it for the UK.
Good luck.
View attachment 1490894

Thank you for all the detail, much appreciated. Subject to the weather, i feel a day out on Sunday coming on

 

[Steve Lister]

Apparently you can buy this species quite cheaply. You could have one in your own garden and see it as much as you like. Until it escapes........

 

[condor1992]

Thank you for all the detail, much appreciated. Subject to the weather, i feel a day out on Sunday coming on

One thing I forgot to mention about this bird. Don't expect it to be easy and approachable like one of those crazy released/escaped August pheasants. It acts like a wild bird, and it also appears to be very, very, very well-experienced with predators. The first view I had it was running at breakneck speed from a dog. In case you have a dog and wanted to take it with you, don't. That is a guaranteed failure.
In regards to weather, don't worry too much about that. It is so dark in that forest that it doesn't really matter what weather it is. The area is good for red kites as well, which sometimes circle very low over Manor Park

 

[Farnboro John]

Well, now we know where it and another got out of: an aviary in the village. No surprise, really.

John

 

[Bismarck Honeyeater]

From RBA

 

[condor1992]

Note that there are two of them here now, and only one of them has been confirmed an escapee. The bird I saw, however, acted wild and it was written black on white that the bird had an 'unknown origin' on a lot of websites. that includes birdguides, a website notorious for assigning anything suspicious (and absolutely all vagrant geese to 'presumed escape). Add to that its responses to predators and its extreme elusiveness and you still have a strong case for considering one of them wild. I have not changed my mind. If I was visiting now, however, I would have wanted to see the 'correct' one at all costs

 

[Farnboro John]

Note that there are two of them here now, and only one of them has been confirmed an escapee. The bird I saw, however, acted wild and it was written black on white that the bird had an 'unknown origin' on a lot of websites. that includes birdguides, a website notorious for assigning anything suspicious (and absolutely all vagrant geese to 'presumed escape). Add to that its responses to predators and its extreme elusiveness and you still have a strong case for considering one of them wild. I have not changed my mind. If I was visiting now, however, I would have wanted to see the 'correct' one at all costs

This is now beyond laughable. Predator responses and skulking behaviour are hard-wired into these pheasants, even the ornamental Goldies on Tresco lurk in the Rhododendron cover. The bird you saw is as plastic as Barbie.

John

 

[Welsh Peregrine]

I am impressed by your certainty; I doubt you will find many other birders with the same view! Is it worth seeing as a British birding experience? Yes. Is it tickable on any comparative list? Not under any but the loosest possible standards. 1+ escapes does not mean that if 2 are seen, one is not an escapee.

 

[cheshirebirder]

Note that there are two of them here now, and only one of them has been confirmed an escapee. The bird I saw, however, acted wild and it was written black on white that the bird had an 'unknown origin' on a lot of websites. that includes birdguides, a website notorious for assigning anything suspicious (and absolutely all vagrant geese to 'presumed escape). Add to that its responses to predators and its extreme elusiveness and you still have a strong case for considering one of them wild. I have not changed my mind. If I was visiting now, however, I would have wanted to see the 'correct' one at all costs

The RBA message says 1+ escapes ( not 1 ) .

 

[condor1992]

The RBA message says 1+ escapes ( not 1 ) .

Birdguides says at least 1 is an escape. 1+ indicates 1 or more. Only 1 is certain, and, as I've said before, the bird I saw was by no means an escape

 

[cheshirebirder]

Birdguides says at least 1 is an escape. 1+ indicates 1 or more. Only 1 is certain, and, as I've said before, the bird I saw was by no means an escape

Hardly worth arguing, but 1+ means more than 1 to me i.e. Definitely not just 1 . Anyway,if you’re happy you saw a wild one, that’s entirely up to you.

 

[Tiraya]

Will us Brits ever get over our lost tickable pheasant species? The answer seems to be quite a clear no. And before anyone raises a pitchfork, I haven't seen one either, and certainly wish I did before the regular colonies disappeared. But if folks are going to pursue one for listing purposes, I think this is not a promising example to "count". Ticking some likely recently released birds at the former site would be at least a step better!

 

[condor1992]

According to Birdguides, 'at least one' escaped. '1+' means one or more mathematically. Stop cherry-picking.
At any rate, I'm stunned by how quickly the second bird was confirmed as an escapee. Not suspected, confirmed. I think it took less than a day, and certainly less than 3. The other pheasant, the one I observed and based on a lot of indications thought was wild, has been sitting there for well over a month now and there has not-not once- been a confirmation or even an official suggestion that it had escaped from the village's aviary, which would have reported it immediately, like it seems to have done now. A LA pheasant missing from an aviary would not have been ignored. Yet there was nothing of the sort with the pheasant I saw 11 days ago- it simply appeared.
Not too difficult to see there is a dissimiliarity between these two situations which, in my eyes, lends even more credibility to the original being wild. Add to what I have repeatedly said about its behaviour around potential predators and elusiveness and I think you have a strong case for still saying the bird is likely wild despite the recent news.
A side note. A while back someone was saying the Flitwick pheasant must be the oldest in an attempt to harass me about my opinion. It in fact needs to be a minimum of 7-9 years old, not over 20. Falling comfortably within the range people unhappy with me declaring I believe this bird to be wild themselves produced

 

[Farnboro John]

According to Birdguides, 'at least one' escaped. '1+' means one or more mathematically. Stop cherry-picking.
At any rate, I'm stunned by how quickly the second bird was confirmed as an escapee. Not suspected, confirmed. I think it took less than a day, and certainly less than 3. The other pheasant, the one I observed and based on a lot of indications thought was wild, has been sitting there for well over a month now and there has not-not once- been a confirmation or even an official suggestion that it had escaped from the village's aviary, which would have reported it immediately, like it seems to have done now. A LA pheasant missing from an aviary would not have been ignored. Yet there was nothing of the sort with the pheasant I saw 11 days ago- it simply appeared.
Not too difficult to see there is a dissimiliarity between these two situations which, in my eyes, lends even more credibility to the original being wild. Add to what I have repeatedly said about its behaviour around potential predators and elusiveness and I think you have a strong case for still saying the bird is likely wild despite the recent news.
A side note. A while back someone was saying the Flitwick pheasant must be the oldest in an attempt to harass me about my opinion. It in fact needs to be a minimum of 7-9 years old, not over 20. Falling comfortably within the range people unhappy with me declaring I believe this bird to be wild themselves produced

Or, more likely, after a month of silliness on BF, some local birder walked round the village looking for aviaries and found one; on enquiring at the house they were informed that a number greater than one Lady Amherst's Pheasants were AWOL, and the enquirer then passed the news on.

QED.

John

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

A while back someone was saying the Flitwick pheasant must be the oldest in an attempt to harass me about my opinion.

Nobody has harassed you. If you want to tick a Lady A in Britain and not receive dissent maybe best not to go on an internet forum. It's clear why people might be sceptical as well as believers.