Who's a Pretty Boy Then?

[johntwo]

Quite a nice specimen.   He was strutting his stuff up near Dunsop Bridge.  His other half didn't look too impressed though. (click for sharper version).

[Ryewolf]

I was up around Dunsop Bridge on Monday, hoping to catch a shot of the Grey Partridges, but they all ran away as soon as they saw me....

[Guest]

They are so very shy.  If you can find somewhere where you can use your car as a hide and then just wait, they sometimes re emerge.   The road out on the moors through Over Wyresdale is quite a good spot - provided the guns aren't out. 

[Ryewolf]

I found the spot around Hareden, near Sykes Farm to be pretty good and I regularly saw groups of 5-6 together by the side of the road or walking along the dry stone walls.

[Guest]

Can't find that on the Map.  Is it near Slaidburn.

[CMunzel]

Pheasants? Are these birds wild or owned by some squire? 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, CMunzel said:

Pheasants? Are these birds wild or owned by some squire? 

Good question C.  It's likely that they have been bred by one of the local estates but whether you can "own" a bird that isable to fly free, I don't know.  There are three local estates.  The Dutchy of Lancaster (AKA the Queen), the Duke of Westminster's Estates and the Bowland estates.  The latter used to belong to the Duke of Bowland but the current Duke, the 16th, is a Don at Cambridge University who's speciality is the History of Lancashire.  He bought the title at auction but whether the lands came with it, I also don't know.

[Ryewolf]

8 hours ago, John2 said:

Can't find that on the Map.  Is it near Slaidburn

It's near Dunsop Bridge...

Hareden/Sykes

[CMunzel]

7 hours ago, John2 said:

Good question C.  It's likely that they have been bred by one of the local estates but whether you can "own" a bird that isable to fly free, I don't know.  There are three local estates.  The Dutchy of Lancaster (AKA the Queen), the Duke of Westminster's Estates and the Bowland estates.  The latter used to belong to the Duke of Bowland but the current Duke, the 16th, is a Don at Cambridge University who's speciality is the History of Lancashire.  He bought the title at auction but whether the lands came with it, I also don't know.

Thank you, John. So  who, if anyone, has the right to kill and eat them? 

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, CMunzel said:

Thank you, John. So  who, if anyone, has the right to kill and eat them? 

You do ask some difficult questions C.  If you trespass onto someone's land and kill a pheasant, I suspect that would be poaching.  However, what the law says about wild animals killed on the highway seems to be more complicated.  I ended up on a Police WEB site and even they weren't sure.  There is a view that if you kill a pheasant by accident as road kill and you pick it up and take it home, you will be guilty of a crime.  That's because it is illegal to pursue a birds and kill it.   However if the person driving the car behind you takes it home, that's OK because they didn't pursue it.  Supposedly works for everything except a deer which is subject to its own set of rules (the Deer Act).  However, none of the contributors to the site could identify the relevant law and the feeling was that this view may only be an urban myth.  Go figure.  The only consolation is that if the police don't have a definitive answer, who's going to prosecute you?

[Ryewolf]

That's interesting to know John, whenever I drive around and see pheasants on the road I always slow down and/or stop, the same as I would if I saw sheep or lambs in the road. I actually didn't know the law regarding roadkill, which seems rather vague, I did know deer and swans had their own special rules.....

[CMunzel]

How interesting.  Thank you for researching the answers to my question/s. Seems like the people who own the land there about are like gentry. 

[Guest]

I guess you don't get more gentrified than the Queen and the Duke of Westminster is reputed to be the richest man in the UK, much of his wealth coming from the fact that he owns great swathes of the centre of London.

[Kobione]

Lovely colour in the first one John, we can only get to see these in specialist aviaries over here, but I do remember seeing some 'in the wild' when we lived over there.

[Leon]

love the look of them, so striking.

 

we should meet up one day, I'll show you where there's literally thousands of them. a farm on a public footpath