Our fit fighting pheasant!

I realize I have quite a bit of catching up to do, in particular to write about our almost unbelievable experiences with a very fit, fighting pheasant in our garden.  He first came for me when I was cutting flowers in our "formal" garden bit last Wednesday morning, it was quite deliberate the way he came towards me with a threatening posture, twice, shooing only made him retreat a few steps.  He came so close a third time that I looked for something to smack him with, picked up a long stalk of Chrysanthemum and smacked him round the head, left right left right ....... he ran then!


If I hadn't experienced it I would have found it hard to believe.  Even stranger, the next morning, I had just changed into my wellies to go out with the duck food, the fellow came strutting right up to me in the garage.  I chucked one of the clogs at him I'd just taken off and hit him in the chest - he hardly backed off at all.  I threw the second clog and hit him again, same result.  He didn't run away until I ran at him yelling!

A couple of days later John came in from the garden saying "I know now what you mean about that pheasant, he attacked me when I was at the compost bin".  If you've ever seen cock pheasants fighting you'll know how they spread their wings, lower their heads and peck the ground, then lift off beating their wings time and again - it was like that, John said.

When I went out on Sunday morning with the duck food I could see that a massacre of a [or maybe 2?] hen pheasant had taken place under our bird food birch, a large area was covered with feathers - must have been an attack from the air, a fox would have taken the bird and not plucked feathers:

 

Now, whether it was that disaster under the birch or his experience with my clogs hitting him, when I tried to take a photo of that fighting pheasant [he's bigger and sleeker than the many others in our garden] he ran away!  I only just caught him on camera near the duck pond:

John was attacked by him again yesterday, Monday.  He came in laughing at lunch time saying he had to 'save himself' from that pheasant.  He'd been busy tidying up near the runner beans when he could see the pheasant stalking up and down behind the fence, who then found a hole in the fence and went at John in fighting posture with beating wings.  That pheasant has got to have a screw loose, we've never known anything like it!

PS on Tuesday 9th October:  John had to fight him off again!  He was burning duck bedding and garden cuttings at the back of the donkey shelter when the feisty devil came for him again and again; he didn't back off until John could get hold of a fork and push him in the chest with the handle.  John says the next time "Satan" comes for him he'll be dinner!