Pheasant logic
Ok maybe they're not geniuses. But we could learn a few things from these birds.
Every year we get pheasants living in the Half Wild Garden. For the most part, we’re delighted to have them. Far less destructive to garden beds than chickens would be, pheasants make fine half-wild companions, eating bugs and entertaining us with their antics all throughout the spring-summer season.
It starts in late winter with a single male.
He stumbles upon this paradise of free food, relative safety and lushly wooded hidey holes, and he goes about setting up shop. This involves strutting the entire acre from morning til night, periodically calling out his territorial claim, punctuated by a noisy wing flap.
Sometimes a bit later in the season, one or two other males will drop by to challenge his property claim—and when that happens there are unavoidable squabbles. As far as I can tell, Male #1 (who by this time is as round as a football, having gorged himself on all the plentiful grub on offer here) seems to always win the debate.
I can’t remember what we named the first one. The following year’s pheasant was, for some reason, called Derek. After that we settled on the name Fez, short for Fezziwig, and it stuck. Each successive pheasant has been called Fez ever since.
The reason that pheasants are so plentiful in these parts is because they’re bred in large numbers for the hunt. A beater goes through the underbrush with a stick, startling many dozens of these birds, who then take flight. And then the shooters (who have paid a great deal of money for the privilege) stand around and shoot them. Not exactly the classical definition of hunting, but there you go.
Bloodsport is big business in the British countryside.
(If you live in America, you may recall the incident awhile back where V.P. Dick Cheney took a group of big bucks Republican party donors out for a similar type of elite bird shoot somewhere in the US—and Cheney accidentally shot one of the donors in the face. And then the wounded billionaire in question publicly apologized to the Vice President for getting his face in the way of Cheney’s gun. Ahh, politics.)
Anyway, these Brit birds are bred en masse but not penned up, so they’re free to roam the countryside. Which is why they’re a common sight in these parts.
After securing his territory, the male sets about attracting as many lady friends as he can persuade to join him. Fez usually has pretty good luck with this, largely due to his excellent digs. And his handsome football shape, of course.
It’s hard to get a photo of the ladies. They travel in groups and are extremely cautious. Their coloration is opposite that of the showy male; they blend right in to their surroundings. The male squawks, but the ladies squeak.
It’s sweet to see how chivalrous Fez is, with the ladies. When the dinnerbell rings (yes, literally) and the grain is scattered for them, he turns up and starts to eat, making a distinctive chuckling noise as he feeds, which signals to the ladies that there’s tasty food here for them. Then as soon as they arrive, he stops eating, stands back and watches over them protectively while they feed.
Bear in mind that a male pheasant has absolutely no protection against predators himself. Instead, if he senses danger, he struts around brashly, calling attention to his own gaudy coloration and movement, in hopes of drawing attention away from the girls. It’s quite touching, really.
The ladies spend a month or so gaining strength, and generally behaving as if they’re on a girls’ spa holiday together. This year has unfortunately been too wet for them, but other years, before all the outdoor beds have been planted up, they create temporary dust baths for themselves in the beds. Wide, shallow bowls, side by side, where a girl can snuggle down and get a nice warm dry bath.
Fez, meanwhile, chooses a discreet spot away from the ladies, where he can sunbathe alone.
(Sometimes, if that dustbowl bed absolutely must be planted, I have to break up the party and put netting over the new plants to keep the pheasants out. But if at all possible, I try to leave them to it.)
And then it’s time for the ladies to each start a family. Unfortunately, it is the habit of pheasants to lay their eggs low to the ground. The cats leave the adult pheasants alone, but sadly, the babies are fair game. And if not the cats, it could just as easily be the occasional fox or bird of prey that raids the nest.
Success rates are extremely low, is what I’m saying.
Hen pheasants are excellent mothers, however, caring for their offspring devotedly and becoming quite fierce when their eggs or chicks are threatened. But there’s only so much they can do.
Last year was the first time one of the ladies managed to raise a clutch of chicks for a few weeks or a month after hatching, before the babies disappeared one by one.
We always root for them to succeed. Maybe one day they will.
This year’s Fez has managed to convince three hens to stay. They’re in the ‘too bad it’s raining’ spa holiday phase, at the moment. Which means they’ll soon be on their nests.
Whether or not it works out for them this year, we can’t help wishing they’d all stay put inside the confines of the Half Wild acreage, where they’d be safe to live a full year and try for another family next time.
But they never do. They don’t get it. Why would they?
I suppose it’s true that pheasants have a brain the size of a pea. They’re legendary among humans for their stupidity. But having been gifted with this ringside seat to watch so many of them up close, I don’t see them as stupid at all. (Even though they can’t be made to understand why they might want to stay.)
It’s only our habit of deciding what intelligence is supposed to look like, that makes them seem stupid. Can they solve complex human-created puzzles, like a magpie does? No. But so what?
Pheasants know what they need to know, and that’s enough. There’s alot we could learn from them, if only we were inclined to listen.