Tour Scotland short travel video clip, with bagpipes music, of Pheasants on a visit to the Highlands, Britain, United Kingdom. Pheasants are large, long tailed gamebirds. The males have rich chestnut, golden brown and black markings on their bodies and tails, with a dark green head and red face wattling. The pheasants we encounter in Scotland, Phasianus Colchicus, are neither native or truly wild. Indigenous to Mongolia, they may have arrived here with the Romans as ornamental birds and were certainly a common sight in Britain by the 10th Century but were virtually extinct again by 1700.They were reintroduced around 1830 as ornamentation for wealthy country estates and parkland of castles and palaces. The fact that they waddle about in manageable areas and only fly under extreme duress, and at a nice speed and height for shooting, is why the trigger happy Victorians soon started rearing them as game birds. Apart from the odd tough feral bird, almost all the pheasants you encounter will be bred and fed by gamekeepers, farmers or shooting collectives. The pheasant shooting season runs from October 1st to February 1st. You can see pheasants across most of the United Kingdom, apart from the far north and west of Scotland. They are least common in upland and urban areas. They can usually be seen in the open countryside near woodland edges, copses and hedgerows. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day. Find things to see and do in Scotland where you are always welcome.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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