Little owl

[klondike]

Pheasants do fly well. Fast and high. It's why they are bred for shooting. I don't know if its just that they are ln an alien environment or they really are dumb. 

Some birds are really smart - the corvids mostly. Most others are smart enough to avoid cars. Pigeon don't always as they often fly low over roads for no clear reason. Over the years I've hit several almost always on motorways. The first I've known being a heavy thump on the windscreen.  Some do seem to be hit while on the road but I've never hit one there

[Mups]

Pheasants do fly well. Fast and high. It's why they are bred for shooting. I don't know if its just that they are ln an alien environment or they really are dumb.

Some birds are really smart - the corvids mostly. Most others are smart enough to avoid cars. Pigeon don't always as they often fly low over roads for no clear reason. Over the years I've hit several almost always on motorways. The first I've known being a heavy thump on the windscreen.  Some do seem to be hit while on the road but I've never hit one there

I see more Pigeons than ant other bird squashed on roads.   They never seem to fly away when they see you coming,  they just sit there in the road until the very last second before they take off.

I can't see how  Pheasants can fly well when they are first released,  as if they have been cramped in cages or tight pens all their young life, and not had room to fly,   I would have thought their wing muscles would be useless at first.    Like the old chicken battery farms,   they were squashed in all their young life and could barely walk,  let alone fly.     It takes a while to build wing muscle up again after freedom.

[klondike]

I dont know anything much about pheasant shooting or how they are reared but I do know that are famed for how fast and high they can fly.

Just looked it up. They typically fly 40mph but can do 60mph. They wont normally be high so pheasant shoots are organised with the shooters lower than where the birds are driven off the ground. They don't fly high and fast for long. Tbh I've only ever seen them walking. Often suicidally.

Pigeon like many other creatures have visual refresh rates faster than humans and what looks like brinkmanship is to them plenty of time. They are usually but not always right. The ones I"ve hit have been flying but dipped down too low crossing the road and always on a fast stretch.

[muddy]

I would imagine those birds that have never never been out of a pen in their life,  so couldn't possibly know anything  about cars and traffic, never having  seen them,  so  wouldn't have the inborn sense of danger like naturally wild birds would have.   

Poor things have only ever seen their own kind  squashed in a pen with them, and humans,  but no traffic, no guns, no gun dogs chasing them out of hiding. 
Then one day when they are released into a totally strange environment,  not knowing where they are, where is a safe place to go,  or probably not even able to fly,  they must be like  sitting ducks,  and very easy targets for those who like to kill  for  pleasure.

I absolutely loathe the hunting lot,  and would like to see the same happen to them in the next world.

You are right Mups they are poults released and don't know what to do .
I had nt realised it was poult release season already - time flies if they don't .
I have stopped my car at times to shoo them off the road .
Hunting them is despicable you may as well shoot chickens 

[klondike]

Nobody is hunting them. They are out of season. They won't have been released if they are young birds they will be escapees and most will either be run over or eaten by foxes. I've not seen any for a while now. Most that survived the season will not have survived being free. I imagine the only reason there are any at all is because they are expensively bred to be shot. Similar to most farm animals really they fall foul one way or another to humans who are this world's apex predator.

[muddy]

You are right Klondike in that the hunting season starts on October 1st  but the poults ( young birds) are released from the rearing pens at the end of July beginning of August  ) .
Usually after the crops have been cut  so they can roam the fields and get a bit bigger before the shooting starts.
Some do get eaten by foxes but they release hundreds of poults so some always survive .
They are quite literally  everywhere around here at the moment .
For what it's worth  it's illegal to shoot peasants on a Sunday in the U.K. .

[klondike]

I didn't know any of that. I assumed they would be held captive until released for a shoot.  I don't think there is much pheasant shooting in these parts. Certainly nobody I've spoken with at the clay clubs I use have ever mentioned it.

That said there must be some as there are often pheasants around at some time over the year. It's often possible to hear shooting from my son's boat when we are fishing there but not at the sort of intensity you'd expect from an organised shoot with driven birds - probably  just one or a couple out pigeon shooting in a vain attempt to save their crops. Certainly the farmer who runs the marina doesn't even bother with that despite them scoffing some big holes in some of his fields.

[muddy]

Just driving back home at about 19.00 and there were some 30 poults on the road ( a country road ) I had to get out and try to chase them off poor things while my husband drove the car very slowly they just didn't know where to go .
I felt like the man who used to walk in front of cars with a red flag .

[klondike]

Rabbits can be daft on roads. There is a long narrow country road to the beach where we had a static caravan and on more than one occasion going there at night there would be a rabbit just standing looking at your headlights. If you went forward slowly the rabbit would run. Not off to the side but straight down the road. On more than one occasion that happend and went on for probably a quarter mile or more.

I've never come across young pheasants but an adult at the side of the road is just as likely to trot across in front of the car as it is to retreat into the hedgerow.

[Mups]

Just driving back home at about 19.00 and there were some 30 poults on the road ( a country road ) I had to get out and try to chase them off poor things while my husband drove the car very slowly they just didn't know where to go .
I felt like the man who used to walk in front of cars with a red flag .

Well done, Muddy.    But this  is exactly what I meant back in post 13.

Quote:

I would imagine those birds that have never never been out of a pen in their life,  so couldn't possibly know anything  about cars and traffic, never having  seen them.

[muddy]

Sadly the birds and they are still very young looked to me trustingly as if I was going to feed them .

(Klondike a rabbit crossed the road among them at just the same time ) 

[klondike]

I wonder if they breed them in bulk near you and sell them on to others for rearing. I can't see that they would be deliberately released. They'd be released shortly before the shoot and those won't start for months yet.

[muddy]

They buy the chicks from places that incubate the eggs .
Then the chicks are put into rearing pens which are usually wooded copses in the corners of fields.These are heavily netted and protected from foxes with electric surrounds .
These pens are large and the birds learn to fly and  at 6 to 8 weeks old, poults are fully feathered, strong and capable of short flights. They also learn to roost in the trees which gives them some protection from foxes .
 Releasing them in July gives the young birds roughly 10 to 12 weeks to get used to the wild  build survival instincts, and reach full adult size before shooting starts in  October
They are still being fed supplementary food from hoppers
If they didn t become ' wild' there would be no sport they would be just like chickens .
Of course the foxes must get many of them at this time .
But so many are released
I took some pictures yesterday but at this age the poults are brown and don't show up very well the males only get their spectacular colouring when they are fully mature .
Here we have black ones too .
Sometimes a peasant is born white .
Shooters have to pay a fine of they shoot a white peasant .
Naturally as an animal lover I am against killing for sport but then I eat chicken and the poor chickens have a much sadder life .
The pheasants at least have a chance of life some do survive against all the odds .
Some get used to coming to gardens for bird feeders where they are at least safe .


Just read up on this and learned that a staggering nearly 30 Million game birds are bred and released every year in the U.K.
Shooting is horrendously expensive and thus is a seriously lucrative bussiness.

[klondike]

Thanks all new to me.