Night activity of the Pheasant (1 Viewer)

[TonyBee]

I have lived in the country all my life ( 55 yrs) and have been aware of the night activity of the Pheasant.
What i mean by this, is when out walking at night, one Pheasant becomes alerted by making its noise, with in seconds the whole area of Pheasants is doing the same,.
Its only recently i have wondered why, is it that one becomes spooked and warns others..

any ideas or indeed answer..

regards..

 

[TonyBee]

BUMP.
Anyone experienced this ?.

 

[TonyBee]

No one at all experienced this ?

 

[King Edward]

I'm not sure if this is the same as you are describing, but in my experience pheasants tend to spend the night roosting in trees and are liable to fly off noisily if disturbed. Once one or a few are disturbed then obviously their response disturbs the others. I can't remember offhand how much calling they do when this happens, but either way pheasants are naturally noisy creatures.

I would assume that the noisy response to disturbance is just their natural alarm system, since the main danger they face at night is being caught unawares. Sounding the alarm this way alerts the other pheasants nearby, and at the same time informs the potential predator that they have been detected and should leave the area.

 

[George Hogg]

Though more often heard at by day ,pheasant cocks will reply en masse to any "boom" whether made by a cock pheasant,a peal of thunder,a quarry blast etc etc.
Domestic turkeys do the same .i.e if you shout HELLO!,evey one will reply in a mass of gobblegobbling!
May be just alarm call or more likely each replying cock is proclaiming his territory.

 

[TonyBee]

I would assume that the noisy response to disturbance is just their natural alarm system, since the main danger they face at night is being caught unawares. Sounding the alarm this way alerts the other pheasants nearby, and at the same time informs the potential predator that they have been detected and should leave the area.

Thanks for the feed back, the above does sound like the obvious. I have read a few books on pheasants but yet to find one that explians this in any detail...

 

[Geoff Brown]

Like King Edward a pheasant often roosts in the trees in my garden. If I come home at dusk without thinking about birds the pheasant clatters off making a tremendous noise, calling and flapping, no doubt warning others, and usually scaring the s**t out of me for a split second.:eek!:

 

[Steve Dudley]

I would assume that the noisy response to disturbance is just their natural alarm system, since the main danger they face at night is being caught unawares. Sounding the alarm this way alerts the other pheasants nearby, and at the same time informs the potential predator that they have been detected and should leave the area.

I'd agree with this. It is described in BWP (Cramp 1980) -
"male crowing-call also sometimes given in short bursts during night, especially if disturbed; in latter case, females and juveniles (at least) make snake-like hiss without moving from spot"

 

[TonyBee]

Interesting comments. Thanks..