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A Pheasant for Christmas…

…well not at my dinner table. No, I’d much rather see a Pheasant as a guest feeding at the dinner table I have in my garden for the ground feeding birds like Blackbirds and Dunnocks. I am sure they wouldn’t mind an extra party guest seeing it is the season of good will. Although I’m not quite sure what they would make of it. They were confused enough with the squirrel eating at this table!


The Pheasant is not a regular visitor to my garden but this morning as I caught up on replies to my previous posting one landed on my lawn outside my window. This is the second time I have ever seen a visit like this in the last 17 years we have had this garden. I should perhaps stress that I am a quite a few streets away from any open countryside or woodland. I watched it follow the edges of my lawn.

Unfortunately, for it, it didn’t find its way to the wilder areas where I scatter food. Instead it walked the length of my lawn and around the back of my arbour. I suspect it would have gone under my hedge and out of my garden as when I went quietly out with my camera it was nowhere to be seen. Ah well… maybe next time. How spookily seasonal was the timing of this visit?

The photo above was not taken in my garden. It was taken at Nature Reserve Loch of the Lowes in March 2008.

9 thoughts on “A Pheasant for Christmas…

  1. How lucky to have one of these handsome brutes in your garden. Doesn’t it just make you wonder where it came from?? I wonder if someones Christmas dinner got away?

  2. Hi Shirl,

    What a lovely Christmas surprise that was. Maybe a Partridge will be next but of course you will need a pear tree to accommodate that!!

  3. They are beautiful birds – but they have to be the most stupid too. I recall last spring one rather hormoned-up male taking umbridge at OH’s car, and trying to attack it whilst it was parked in the Lane!

  4. They are rather stupid – but I love watching them – one of the gardens that I work in has about 4 that come to feed morning and afternoon regular as clockwork – they are beautiful.
    But I do wonder where yours came from Shirl! ??
    K

  5. Hi again Lisa, Gail, ShySongbird, Zoë & Karen 🙂

    Lisa – It was, but so weird too! Yes, I can only guess that as I am on one side of my small town and there are major building works going on in outskirts the Pheasant was disorientated. There are fields and a Loch around the edge of the town as well as a major road. LOL, yes I was thinking along the same lines 😉

    Gail – Yes, they do seem to find there way here. I am always surprised at what visits. He was quite handsome. Thank-you I did 😉

    ShySongbird – Yes, it really was. LOL, you made me consider a series here – I do have a weeping pear 😀

    Zoë – They are! Oh… I’m afraid I am not familiar enough with pheasants but it does sound like something a woodpigeon would do too. It does appear stupid. It must have been funny to watch too – although I would be worried about the possibility of an Insurance claim 😉

    Karen – Once again, I had no idea they were lacking in grey matter 😉 Although this one must have used some to get over my hedge in the first place! Wow… four coming to a garden to feed must be fun to see. It really would be fascinating to see one feed with the Blackbirds in my garden but I doubt we will see it again far less regular visits. I can only guess that the building of a school about a seven minute walk away has disturbed it from the fields and woodland around it.

  6. We have many wild pheasants in this area, and they are so beautiful! When I read the title of your post, I wondered if you were having a pheasant TO dinner, or FOR dinner. 🙂

  7. Shirl, The pheasant is a beautiful bird. It would be extremely unlikely that one would ever be in my yard. But, I have been getting pileated woodpeckers for the last couple of years. They started coming here after a lot of de-forestation to build housing developments. I wonder if your pheasant was disoriented due to land development, buildings going up, etc?? Jan

  8. Hi again Nancy & Jan 🙂

    Nancy – Wonderful – it is great that you can see so many 😀 I really don’t see a lot around here. LOL, I thought I’d have a slight play with words in the title 😉

    Jan – I agree it is! Pity you don’t see it but gosh you have quite a variety of species visiting your garden! Yes, I do believe that the building work has some bearing on this visit 😀

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