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Writer's pictureMhairiFenton

Pleasant to be a Pheasant

Updated: Mar 9, 2021

I'm lowkey becoming a twitcher and I'm not mad about it. I've just bought 'Britain's Birds- An identification Guid to the Birds in Great Britain and Ireland' - Its so satisfying identifying the species of a bird, its a form of spot the difference, which then leads you to the right sub- species. This next one is obvious; its a pheasant, but this is only the Sub-family or genus. So in this blog I'm going to be identifying what pheasant species it is.


So this was easy as the other species of pheasant that were introduced into the UK, the Golden Pheasant and Lady Amherst's Pheasant, but now have severely declined. This is an adult male phesant- Phasianus Colchicus- it is a game bird with unique shapes and colours with a long, tapered tail. It is mostly dark red/brown with golden flashes on flank and purple/red on breast, with inky black spots throughout. The pheasant has a white collar with a green, purple and black head, with a red facial wattle. The wattle is a sexual dimorphism and a courting characteristic, the larger the wattle the more testosterone levels, nutrition and ability to evade predators which all indicate a more attractive mate.



Adult female pheasants are smaller, shorter tailed with pale brown with cream and black spots and streaks as seen below.





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