Out for a quick walk today, when a wild Pheasant who's been following me for a couple of years, decides today is the time to make 'first contact'. Turns out I'm not too keen on his idea of friendship !
+Hazzball Gaming Over the next few days he began hassling my wife, the horses, the dog and the guests at our holiday home. So we caught him in one of the horses hay nets. He got tangled up, so we had to cut him out of it. We then put him in a cardboard box and took him to a large woodlands about 10 miles away. We set him free and we haven't seen him since. Lately though, another young male pheasant has been hanging around. I just hope he isn't the son of the first one, out for revenge like in Jaws 2. ☺
CountryHouseGent haha :D Shame you took him away though, he could have been your best friend! You could've given him food if you hadn't already, some seeds or something.
He may have thought you were offering food with your hand. Wild pheasants will adopt you and follow you everywhere. One did with our family, and never pecked us. They can become really great friends.
@@CountryHouseGentthe problem was you bowed to it. I guess that’s a way to initiate a fight to them. I have a pheasant as of recently idk much about them but I know that’s a gesture of violence or whatever. Mine are quite scared of me for now but they’re juveniles and theyre new to me. Next time just stand your normal level and offer food. Maybe that’ll change his attitude.
When you held your hand up toward his face like that, it was very bad body language for this species. I know that is how you signal friendly intentions to a dog. However, this is not a dog. To him your lowered hand was moving just like the way another male pheasant lowers his head before attacking. That's when he decided you were a rival that needed to be chased off.
Alyenbird Yep I think you're right. The first attack was easily my assuming too much. The second, not so sure but as you say, dropping down and holding the phone out, he thought I was preparing to lunge. Still, you live and learn.
Bad body language for any species hoping, counting on another for their substance. I have seen deer kick and headbutt the door of an automobile, because they received a empty hand. I have seen squirrel jump on a persons back, and run circles around that persons shoulders because there wasn't peanut in their hand. I have seen my neighbor pull up and throw his mail box across his yard, because he did not receive his paycheck in the mail.
We got three wild pheasants here right now (Germany) and as long as Iive (33 years) I have never seen pheasants in my hometown. I am a hobby nature photographer and our pheasants are super shy. And after watching this video i am glad they are shy 😂
The more I look at his golden brown feathers, the more I think about a succulent, poultry dinner, burnished to a crisp yet juicy glazed, golden brown finish.
This video makes me so happy! What a sassy pheasant lol. Can’t believe he bit you like that. I got attacked by one the other day. Jumped right at the window. Sometimes they wake us up by pecking on the window. Our neighbourhood is run by these guys haha. We really like them but are surprised by how sassy they can be. Also, looks like a lovely life you’ve built for yourself Surrounded by nature like you are. Thanks for posting this video and kudos for not getting too angry with that bird. You clearly manage anger well haha.
He's treating you the way the males treat each other, so the previous guesses about territory and mating are probably right, but the behaviour and territorialism between males is hard to unpick. I've watched the local pheasants here for a while now and they're somewhere in between territorial and social. They'll shadow each other on their food routes, establish a kind of pecking order but not usually drive each other off. We have a tame one that eats out of your hand, and today he was shadowed by a much more impressive looking one who harried him but didn't actually bully him - just watched to make sure the smaller one wasn't getting all the food. Like rivalrous siblings, almost. It's very odd.
Looks like you may have to hold him down to the ground... When a rooster wants to establish domince over another rooster, he will mount him like a hen. If you hold him to the ground for a few seconds (right side up), it shows that you are in charge.
+Gary Phillips :D Absolutely not. He did himself no favours that day. One strike and you're out in my book - and a journey in a box to someone else's woods miles away. :)
Jez..... psycho pheasant LOL. I thought he were quite beautiful & cute until he started doing that lol. Am sure he didn't mean any harm lol, perhaps just a protective instinctive behaviour as he is wild Or maybe he were just having an off day lol.
We were on a unsealed back road somewhere near Stirling Scotland, horribly lost because the husband decided he didn't need a "stupid GPS" and one of these things runs out of the grass and just stops in the middle of the road! We weren't driving very fast so we stop and commence a 10 minute staring competition with the bird version of Gandalf "you shall not pass". And they say the animals in our country (Australia) are mean!
We had one just like this, I was trying to feed it and gave it a name . . . then it started to attack, the last attack (3 in total) involved it jumping on my son (3) and clawing him quite badly. So no matter how interesting we had to get "shot" of him. It is funny how we humanise animals, even things like spiders.
He was probably a stalked pheasant thats why he had the bald spot form the netting of the cage, pheasants fly when there scared and will fly up and hit the net alot when in captivity then there released into the wild. Here in PA they stalk like 10,000 pheasants a year per area or county i believe, for us hunters and to help wild populations, so if you live by game lands that stalk pheasants your going to have alot of them around your home thats for sure. And there just like chicken roosters so they do like to fight everything and they always use them sharp little spurs.
I think it might see something on the camera as a threat, some birds sees danger in the most common and unexpected things or they simply try to bite or scratch it to examine it, and we, humans, have a very delicate skin XD lol
OMG.........i was born and lived on a farm until 19 years old and had a pet pheasant and pigeon. The pheasant would sit on the back of my motorcycle when parked and chase me along the lane to the farm along with friends visiting on their bikes, however when the bird decided it would enforce its superiority it was time to hide😈
i had one turn up about 6 months ago. he arrived very shortly after all but 1 of my ducks were wiped out by predators in one week. the last duck and the pheasant made friends and would hang together. the pheasant would come up and eat of the food bowl from my hand. the duck has since found a pair of wild ducks and hides way out the back. the pheasant recently bought a girl friend home. she was a bit more skittish but now ignores me. she has actually disappeared in the last few weeks, i am assuming she is sitting so one day soon may have babies running around as well. the boy is still front and center and follows me all over the show. sometimes he gets a bit stroppy, but i noticed he tried to cut me off sometimes form the right, sometimes from the left. so i thought, lets go where you are telling me to go. guess where we ended up? at the food bowl... now if he is bothering me i check there is food in the bowl. hes a bloody cat with feathers! he had a go at me once, and he got the fight response not the flight response, and has never done it again. seems a swift kick in the guts allowed us to reach an accord. it wasnt hard, but it was instant, more of a reaction from me that lifted him in the air for a bit... still, seemed to have done the trick and now we happily coexist :-) i consider him my pet
Awesome video. I recently befriended a female pheasant. While it was extremely cold (-15c) she just sat quietly in the snow in my garden. I went out to give her some food, and I could get real close. Gave her some sunflower seeds, and she has been my friend since that. She comes around almost every day, and I give her a handful of seeds. After eating the seeds, she quietly walks away. She hasn’t shown any aggression at all. Are females nicer than males? There are 8 pheasants in the neighborhood, 1 male and 7 females, so I guess the females are his harem. The male is totally shy, but maybe that’ll change once mating season starts?
I doubt the pheasant ever meant to be "friendly." He's showing territorial dominance, staking out his claim to his turf. The clue? The red wattle area of his face is engorged and enlarged, for this film was obviously shot in spring when pheasants mate. This kind of aggression isn't as rare in birds as some folks think. Remember the fighting gamecocks are a close relative, and even some barnyard chickens try to dominate humans.
