Anyone who reads this blog regularly will know that we have a soft spot for the pheasants that come into the garden. In recent months, the male pheasant that we have nicknamed Billy has been the only bird around. He comes to the back door where we feed him peanuts. He's also started to hurry around to the back door when I call him from the bedroom window.
What we haven't really seen since early autumn have been any females. On Saturday morning we where blessed with the presence of not one, but four hens who slipped into the garden.
Of course,they rushed straight to the area beneath the bird feeders. We did not know if these girls where part of a family that we had seen in the summer or if they unconnected birds that had formed a group.
One thing we did notice was as soon as one headed off, the others would leave what they where doing and hurry to catch up. They headed straight for the bird feeder station in the corner of the garden.
The four pheasants hung around the garden for most of the day, moving from one feeder to the other. We spotted Billy, observing from the farmers field behind the wire fence but neither he nor the females where particularly interested in each other.
We haven't seen them today, so its possible that they don't stay in the same area for very long. This might be just as well, as we've seen and heard foxes in the garden in recent days and yesterday we also witnessed one of the local cats take out a grey squirrel. Nature can be cruel.
I think these are the young chicks you had around earlier. If I come to your back door will you also throw your nuts at me?
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