Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes January 28 2009

WHAT a pretty picture the old boys make amid the snowdrops. Every January, cock pheasants still remain to fight it out after the shoots gather among the first spring flowers.

I know my snapshot does no justice to these handsome old fellows. Even so, you may get the picture.

By hiding behind the garage, or flying down the line of beaters, even in one case sitting on the chimney pot of this old gamekeeper's house deep in the Sussex woods, successive cocks have survived to breed for their second and last season.

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They always become tame in the new year. First they get a taste for bird seed and crumbs and cheese rinds on the bird table. They get used to my ancient Barbour coat, which has seen days on the Norfolk saltmarshes under the pinkfoots as well as wigeon under the moon on Devon's Taw and Torridge.

The cocks just ignore me as I press the trigger on my oId Pentax, which has also seen days on downs and moors, tidal creeks and ancient woodlands. I am usually a yard or two away. I have even noticed that some cocks get stroppy with each other when I appear, as if they are fighting to impress me.

As I walk really close, one will eventually retreat, and the dominant has been known to crow and strum his wings at my feet. Would he then decide to take me on? That is not as fanciful as it seems. Years ago, when Reeve's pheasants, which are much bigger birds, had been released here, one cock Reeve's used to attack my children when they started out down the lane through the woods for the school bus.

My son had to carry a stick to ward him off and he attacked that instead, his inch-long needle-tipped spurs slashing out in fury. I still have a tail feather from this bird and it is 5ft in length. The bird had been released by Edward James, the art patron, connoisseur and owner of West Dean Estate.

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Pheasants for the shooting industry are the hybrids of distinct wild species: Southern Green, Southern Caucasian (also called Old English Black-Neck) White-Winged, Mongolian and Chinese Ring-Necked.

There are about 30 different geographical races of the Common Pheasant (Old English) alone. So what ancestry have these two old chums in my garden? Very mixed up, is all I can say '“ rather like the snowdrops and their questionable origins, either native or from the Mediterranean regions.