Kitchen Garden Forum

Well for the last two or three years I have seen an albino white pheasant round here, and this year end of march I saw an all black pheasant, at first I thought it must be a grouse, but yesterday it was strutting along on the grass verge in our lane and I got a close look and it was definitely a black pheasant - no females with it - perhaps they prefer those with more colour.
The first sighting sparked a haiku.....

Urban fox -
the sun and a black pheasant
above our garden

we have cats so they fly over our garden rather than into it.

Hi NB,
All black Pheasants are quite common hereabouts and years ago I saw a white one which I learned later was shot stuffed and mounted!
I was so Bl--dy cross I had a go at the person who committed the foul deed.
Although a dedicated meat eater I do not eat game birds I would much prefer to watch them with binoculars than take a gun to them. Mind you Pheasants can be a real nuicance in the vegetable area,
I am overrun with Wood Pigeons this year and I will have to take a gun to them sadly but I counted over 40 up in the trees the other day and they are just waiting for me to make a slip-up and leave something unprotected. I went back up to the house a couple of years back and left 15 newly planted cabbages and within the 5 minutes I was away they were all ruined.
JB.

Hi Johnboy. White pheasants often don't survive too long as they're not very good camouflage but ours was around about 3 years, first black one I have seen in our area though ! Yes I love birds too, a couple of blue tits in our new nesting box.