Back on the bike today, with the journey enlivened by antics of one of the local pheasant population, surely the stupidest bird on the planet. Fortunately, this was a girl pheasant, which meant it flew away from the road (the blokes preferring the suicidal approach of tackling the traffic head on) but it’s still a shock to the unwary.
At this time of year – actually at all times of the year – the roads here are full of apparently suicidal gamebirds. But particularly now when the population is bulked out both by this year’s young birds and the ones which have been bred and released purely for the purposes of being shot at. When people wax lyrical about game being wild food, I don’t think they can have meant pheasants which, as far as I can tell are no less intensively reared than the average commercial free-range chicken and have the road sense to match. Unfortunately, as one is not supposed to shoot at the damn things unless they’re airborne, the ones that have survived this long are the ones that fly as little as possible. Eventually a breed of entirely flightless pheasants will evolve, hopefully with an inkling of the green cross code. Until then we get a bird whose best plan for survival is to crouch in a ditch until a car – or bike – is almost upon it and launch itself like a cackling feathery rocket in a random direction and hope for the best. ‘Startling’ doesn’t even beging to describe the effect. Who needs halloween, when you can get the crap scared out of you every day of the week?
It hardly seems sporting to me to line up with a big gun and blast away at birds which have been raised and then released and driven towards you just for that purpose (why not go the whole hog and hunt cows? There’s more meat on them and they’re easier to hit). If you want real sport round here, requiring real skill and the thrill of the chase, just get into your car and take to the back roads and see how many pheasants you can not hit. Bonus points for not hitting a red squirrel as well…
Can’t blame pheasants for having no road sense. As far as I can tell there is no species yet to evolve that has road sense already programmed into its DNA. None at all.
Sad story from the BBC about a motorcyclist killed when a pheasant hit his helmet:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/7706643.stm
The pheasant’s escape is just as noisy, and random, when a greyhound sticks its head into the ‘safe’ ditch or hedge.
WW – too true, but pheasants (along with kangaroos) seem to be the only ones that actively court death. Oh and rabbits.
Paul – bet that startles the greyhound…
I think the greyhounds realise something is there – it is us it scares the crap out of.
Pheasants are indeed dumb. Last year I saw a mother and five chicks clambering down our bank and across the road just as I was taking the dogs out. As we approached the spot the mother flew at the dogs and I had one hell of a job pulling them away as she just kept coming.
Mother love … what is it they say about the female of the species?
yes it was funny the othet week when one the lads at work hit one in a transit- it went straight through the grill and into the engine at 70MPH AND DIDNT DIE! could here him on the other end of the phone trying to extract this mangled pheasent and put it out its misery at the same time all the while cursing it for making him late still laughing now thinking about it…