Adored and cosseted, but why so many dogs? My week as a pheasant

Monday

This is our country. We own it by right of conquest. Our ancestors lived no closer than the Black Sea, but humans fell in love with us, shipped us over and gave us Britain for our home. I was looked after lovingly as a chick and then I made my splendid way out into the open countryside. Me and 50 million others. It happens every year. That’s because no other bird matters.

Tuesday

In the last few months I have grown up to be exceedingly handsome. There can be no two views on the matter. I do the countryside honour by walking through it and eating everything I can find. At this time of the year the biomass of us pheasants is 1.7 times the biomass of all other bird species in Britain. This country was made for us and it is managed for us.

Wednesday

I was reared in a pen, a domestic animal. When I took my first stroll into the countryside I magically became wildlife. But that’s not as sordid as I feared: those humans put up nice bins of grain to keep us going. And the world is full of seeds and berries and shoots and worms and insects and spiders. I stroll at my ease, eating what I please.

Thursday

There’s a lot of activity round my place. Is it me, or are they especially assiduous about topping up the feeders? There are people doing odd things with dogs, and I don’t much care for dogs. And today they started driving pegs into the ground, pegs with numbers on. I really can’t see the point of that at all.

Friday

I’m a large meaty ground bird, so naturally I have enemies. But humans are very good at taking care of them. I’ve been told about foxes, but I’ve never seen one. It’s a concern, but at the end of the day, it’s my country not theirs. There are stoats and weasels too, but they get pretty well hammered. What were all those dogs for, I wonder?

Saturday

Well, it’s been a disquieting couple of days, but I have my tried and tested escape ploys. The first of these is lying doggo. Even a bird as beautiful as me is remarkably hard to spot when I keep perfectly still. And then, should the danger get too close for comfort, I leap into the air yelling at the top of my voice. That startles ’em good and proper: and for an instant they freeze. And that instant is enough: I’m in the air. Once I’m up there, what can possibly harm me? I tell you, it’s a bloody good life, being a pheasant.

Pheasant CV

Lifespan Let’s not get into that right now

Eating habits Everything

Hobbies Strutting, eating

Sexual preferences I haven’t really got round to that sort of thing yet

The pheasant shooting season begins on Wednesday

Photograph by Sven-Erik Arndt/Universal Images via Getty