Falling fowl of the pheasant

WARNING: this is a violent tale of country life... of unprovoked attacks... where gang leaders guard their territory... where assailants lie in wait in icy twilit lanes... where an innocent passer-by gets viciously beaten about the head.

Or, in other words, how I got mugged by a pheasant. Stop laughing, now. It wasn't funny.

Territorial birds, pheasants. They guard their patch with all the vigilance of a crack dealer on an inner city estate. Whenever I walk down the lane near our house, cock pheasants roar up and down on the other side of hedges like demented road runners, marking out their land. Sometimes, they come and peck at my feet, or march alongside me as if to make sure I don't stray onto their territory. Or maybe even flutter up into my face. Annoying.

But now it's got personal. And it's war.

There is one particular cock pheasant which is more aggressive than the rest - and he doesn't like me. A few weeks ago, I saw him sitting on a gate post. Something had clearly made him cross. His feathers were all puffed out, making him look huge.

Wham! With that, he had flown from the gate post straight at my head, with all the force and accuracy of an Exocet. He dug his spurs into my shoulder - thank goodness for a fleece and thick jumper. I yelled at him, hit him with my hands and eventually got rid of him. My fleece looked like something from one of those twee country catalogues - a pattern of pheasant footprints all over the back.

The cock birds were getting extra aggressive this year, said the gamekeeper, because the warm weather made them think it was the breeding season. "He's only protecting his territory," he said jovially. This particular pheasant had threatened other people but I was the only one he'd actually attacked - maybe because I generally walk alone, with neither dog nor companion. Or maybe he just didn't like my highlights.

The gamekeeper promised to net him and take him to another part of the estate. It was, I thought, an exception, yet I still didn't fancy going down the lane.

But good grief, I thought, it's only a bird. A big bird certainly, but still a bird. So off I set, taking a stick with me, just in case.

It was a splendid day, and I ended up walking further than planned, so it was getting dark when I came back down the lane.

The pheasant was waiting. He was standing stock still in the gloom, staring out across the fields. He didn't look at me. Didn't move.

Can a pheasant have an air of danger and menace? This one did.

I was 200 yards from home. The only other way back involved a three-mile walk in the dark.

Trying not to unsettle or upset him, I moved steadily and quietly down the lane. It seemed to work. He still didn't move. Just stared.

I had just about got past him, was just beginning to feel safe, when I heard a fearful rumbling and a flapping behind me. This time, he launched himself straight up onto the top of my head. He scrabbled for a hold and then hooked himself firmly on, his claws tangled in my hair, his spurs in my scalp. It hurt. A lot. I tried to dislodge him with my stick.

I don't know if you've ever tried to hit a pheasant that has his spurs stuck into your scalp but believe me, it's not easy. It probably looked like a more than usually riotous Morris dance.

Eventually, he flapped down to the ground again, taking a small chunk of my scalp with him. He marched alongside me, glaring at me. I held my stick to his throat, glaring at him. We eyed each other as we walked along, each daring the other to make the first move. I could almost hear the High Noon music. Then we came to the end of his patch and he flew off.

Muddy and bloody - and by now all of a dither - I went straight round to the gamekeeper's house and left an angry message. And, because I'm a coward, I swore I wasn't going to walk down that lane while that pheasant was still there, which is a shame, because as it's so close to my house, it's the start and finish of nearly every walk - and I walk most days.

As I told my tale to people, there were two reactions - the heartless laughed, but other people had also had their battles with aggressive birds and didn't think it funny at all. Quite a few cockerels have quite irrationally taken against people, and one woman was actually attacked and knocked to the ground by an owl she'd disturbed in a long unused outhouse.

In Wales and Devon, pheasants have been known to attack postmen - something about the red van, apparently. And in one place, villagers had to collect their own mail after a postman refused to deliver until the pheasant was dead. I understand entirely.

Pheasants are stupid birds, with one of lowest ratios of intelligence to body mass. And this particular cock pheasant was no exception. True, it managed to dodge the gamekeeper for a day or so, but then it went and attacked the hand that fed it. Literally. As the gamekeeper buzzed down the lane in his little buggy loaded up with pheasant food, the daft bird dashed out and tried to head butt the bumper.

Fatal.

So now I can walk down the lane again in safety. My scalp has almost healed. I carry a stick and a bag of corn, and keep a weather eye out for other territorial birds, just in case.

And there's another change.

I rarely used to eat meat and never game, but I find that now I can make one particular exception.

Roast pheasant anyone?