Sprout, the Magpie and me.

Katek Pheasants are about the most stupid birds going with regard to road traffic. They have absolutely no road sense. It's not your fault.

Last week I saw a beautiful mature roebuck which had just been killed by a vehicle. I bet that did some damage! To my knowledge I have never run over any living creature, but would be extremely upset if I did. I am not really callous.
My father used to take home road kill. A pheasant would be 'hung' in the garage until its bottom went green before it was ready for cooking.

KateK pheasants are a real problem on the roads around here at cetain times of the year, they are classic ditherers when it comes to crossing the road.

I have heard that they hve tunnel vision, which might help to explain their behaviour.

Or perhaps they are just very, very thick

I did try to miss it but whatever way I steered it went the same way. It was a horrible feeling - I've never hit anything alive before. Dd1 had a friend in school whose sister was killed in a traffic accident trying to avoid pheasants. Deer are rife around here as well and just come out of nowhere. Dh always says where there's one there's a second so look out for it.

Pheasants really are a hazard in our neck of the woods. Driving round the back of Berry Pomeroy Castle last year, the place was literally alive with them, can't think how we managed to drive along without squishing one. (DH just drove very very slowly and carefully.) They are incredibly stupid birds with no sense of danger whatsoever, added to which they are also incredibly lazy, never bother flying if they can help it, just walk about without a care in the world, right along the middle of the road.

Don't feel bad, Katek, I know it's horrible, but they're almost impossible to avoid sometimes.

(And roast pheasant is rather good, so I'm told )

On our way to see the DGCs the other week we were on a high moorland bit of road and came across four peacocks/peahens. They were wandering about on this unfenced road and OH had to get out of the car and shoo them right off the road. I have never seen them up there before. They were not in the usual parkland type setting. Feral Peacocks.

Around here, the pheasants stroll across the road as if they have all the time in the world, then once on the other side they take to the air! Daft birds!
Hubby once ran over a rabbit late one night, it just ran straight out in front of us, I`ll never forget the sickening bump as the car went over it.

We used to have a dark green Zafira which must have been similar to the local gamekeepers car because when we drove along one stretch of road - which was quite often - pheasants would coming running towards us from all directions expecting to be fed!

I have read that on some estates more pheasants die from starvation after they been let out than by any other means. Road kill comes second. Poor beggars. Luckily a knock on from set aside strips for wildlife is that birds are actually breeding in the wild so more are surviving. I know of one gamekeeper who now has the balance just right and he no longer rears any pheasant or partridge in pens (but he does work for a rich landowner not a banking conglomerate).

Apparently, these are wild descendants of Chinese ringneck pheasants which were once bred as game birds on a local estate. They are everywhere....we had a large male who lived in our front garden in last house, and he spent his days attacking his reflection in the driveway mirror!

Katek pheasants are known ditherers. The roads round here look like a massacre site at certain times of the year.

I've been told that they have tunnel vision, which might account for their behaviour.

Either that or they are just very, very thick.

Nellie, I am sure that peacocks are every bit as stupid as pheasants. A few years ago, I woke to what sounded like a peacock. Thought I was dreaming but when I heard it again, I looked out and there it was, perched on the roof of a house across the brook. I heard later that a couple of them had escaped from a farm about a mile away.