Phil

We often get pheasants in our garden, so much so that we even bought a sack of pheasant food a couple of years ago when it was really cold, as one kept coming up and tapping on our sitting room patio doors! "Our" pheasants are always called Phil for the boys, and Philomena for the girls. Sadly I saw one of our Philomenas on the road outside last year - squished.

This year we have been visited regularly by this beautiful specimen. He is really dark, and in some light looks almost black, but as you can see, he is a very deep blue/green/purple iridescent colour. The local gamekeeper was chatting to C, and mentioned that there was an almost black male about, and I was a bit concerned that he may be a sitting target for people out pheasant shooting, but I've been assured that he is the gamekeeper's favourite.

I've done a bit of research, and evidently he is just a variation or mutation of the normal "Common" Pheasant, but this variation does have a name, which is "'tenebrosus'. Just found out that this translates as "dark or gloomy" - he may be dark but he's certainly not gloomy!

The weather is awful here today, which explains why he has spent all day in our garden - at least there's a bit of shelter and loads of food there for him, if no Philomenas.