Red Legs

[Geoff]

Not the best of pictures but they only seem to come at the start and end of the day but we are getting 6 to 8 Red Legged Partridge cleaning up round the bird feeders. Not seen these for ages. Hope they don't fall victim to the local half-wits with their pop guns, I suppose they could have released them. I'm afraid I don't see wandering round with a shotgun either sport or anything to do with conservation as they would have us believe.

[Monika]

Geoff, when we first started birdwatching quite seriously (not twitching!!) about 40 years ago, red-legged partridges were quite a rarity. Certainly in Yorkshire, they only occurred in the grain growing areas in the east. Since then, they have spread west(and north?)wards and are seen regularly around here now. So, perhaps, they cover the whole of the north now. Very attractive birds, aren't they?

[jane E]

These are the very pretty french partridge The common partridge seems to have got very uncommon, but they breed these french partridge for the shoots and so they abound. These partridge and pheasants are all over the place here - and seem principally to be dead on the road because they've been released for the shooting season at this time of the year.