A few Pheasants from around the world

Many of the ringneck pheasants (True Pheasants) brought into the eastern Canadian provinces years ago were from English stock, not all but many.

A large number of the birds seen in Britain are also truly wild birds. The pheasants in Britain are made up of many true pheasant subspecies from around the world. True pheasant or common pheasants were brought in from all over the world. In the old days it was said " the sun never sets on the British empire". The link below give the history of Britain's pheasants:

http://www.thefield.co.uk/features/t...pheasant-22364

The pheasant gene pool is made from the original old English pheasant brought in believed by the Romans the Chinese ringneck, the Mongolian ringneck the Japanese Green and the White-Winged pheasant (they called their White-Winged pheasants "The Prince of Wales" pheasants).

In 1906 the state of Kansas and many eastern and midwest states obtained their original brood stock for release from England, but 100 years ago in terms of genetic wildness and alertness those birds were closer to F1 because they were only a few generations removed from the wild.
 
This is a short video of a Versicolor :Japanese green" pheasant in Japan dusting himself. When you hear people talk about the time of day pheasants "loft" this is often what they are doing. This behavior helps remove mites, lice, etc from their skin.

http://youtu.be/0i_oMkSmsuw

Similar to wild pheasants here in N. America, Japan's wild pheasants (also) bunch up into groups during winter months. Here's a group of cock Versicolors pheasants.

http://youtu.be/D38e09S6ZDc


Notice the cackle on the Versicolor is a higher pitch than N. American pheasants.

http://youtu.be/yG-VGARrdD4

Nick
 
This is one of my all time favorite Threads!

Interesting habitat in that one video, looks like a lot of open cover and mature trees, heck we have plenty of that. :rolleyes:

Would love to get a hold of some of those live birds!
 
Nick, great photos keep them coming. The caucasus pheasant is the forerunner or ancestor of the (so called) old English pheasant.
We (here in the states) need new authentic truly wild, true pheasant genes imported in from abroad to add to our old commercial brood stock that is available to the public.

The reason why I am saying this is because some of the shooting preserves and state DNR are putting out 60 or 70 generations (of living in the pen, not F1) tame fat pen raised pheasants every year. Mutation are showing up because of many years of inbreeding.
 
FLDBRED said:
Would love to get a hold of some of those live birds!
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Me too. Check out James Pfarr's Facebook page--I think you have to sign in to see his photos--though I could be wrong. He has a very nice stock of True pheasants--Versicolor included. He just posted some photos of some beautiful Bianchi/"afghan whitewing" pheasants. A breed from Afghanistan:)

Nick
 
Preston1 said:
Nick, great photos keep them coming. The caucasus pheasant is the forerunner or ancestor of the (so called) old English pheasant.
We (here in the states) need new authentic truly wild, true pheasant genes imported in from abroad to add to our old commercial brood stock that is available to the public.

The reason why I am saying this is because some of the shooting preserves and state DNR are putting out 60 or 70 generations (of living in the pen, not F1) tame fat pen raised pheasants every year. Mutation are showing up because of many years of inbreeding.
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I spoke with someone who has been working out the Illinois DNA/pheasant study about bringing in "new stock" from China and elsewhere. He told me "there's absolutely no way". I think as long as there's a avian flue issue we're going to have to find an alternate route--what exactly that is, I'm not sure:confused:
 
Interstate trap and transfer? Even that I think would reinvigorate the populations, especially those of "island" populations like I hunt.
 
quail hound said:
Interstate trap and transfer? Even that I think would reinvigorate the populations, especially those of "island" populations like I hunt.
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PA did it with SD pheasants. Those birds seem to be having some success in their new home out east.
 
If say California and Illinois could agree to swapping a certain amount of roosters per year for X amount of years maybe it would add a bit of the genetic diversity needed for a healthy breeding population. Certainly would be worth investigating.

Edit: Maybe hens would be better because they would be safe from hunters? I'm not sure which would be better.
 
quail hound said:
Edit: Maybe hens would be better because they would be safe from hunters? I'm not sure which would be better.
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Hen's are good. There's a few sights (here in IL) where "Manchurian"/cross" roosters were released. It seems the existing wild rooster populations have been doing a good job of keeping the "Manchurian"/cross bloodlines out of the gene pool--I'm guessing those that survived until breeding season had their @$$es kicked by existing wild ringneck pheasant roosters. Possibly wild hen's didn't find them desirable enough to breed with either:confused:

One other troubling issue the study found was a declining breeding population of our wild birds. Regardless of how many healthy hens are in an area/habitat, they aren't breeding. Those that are breeding are producing fewer chicks. Brood sizes are declining. Not good.

Nick
 
Cackling Strauchi "Michigan" "sichuan" pheasant
http://www.birdnet.cn/thread-800200-1-1.html

Close up photos for Strauchi hen
http://www.birdnet.cn/thread-921966-1-1.html

Strauchi rooster
http://www.birdnet.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=956689&highlight=%EF%F4%BC%A6

Torquatus "chinese" trying hard to impress his lady. For those who don't know, what this rooster is doing is similar to what a tom turkey does in the spring to impress hen turkeys. The rooster will make himself appear to be larger than he really is, fan out is tail, make his ear tuffs stand out, and his wattle swells, and call out with some smooth, soft, quit tones.
http://www.birdnet.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=956689&highlight=%EF%F4%BC%A6

3 WILD BIANCHI ROOSTERS. Notice their rumps are red, not green or blue
http://www.birdnet.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=914700&highlight=%EF%F4%BC%A6

Another Strauchi roosterhttp://www.birdnet.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=914040&highlight=%EF%F4%BC%A6
 
Great article Preston thank you. When I originally posted my post with the bianchi link I wrote above it "bianchi or something close to it" because those roosters seem to lack the dark chest and the dark tipped flank feathers. Are they another line of sub-species/not bianchi? Thanks. Edit--I was just looking through James pharr's book TRUE PHEASANTS and it looks like they may be P.c.Shawi, Yarkand pheasants not Bianchi???
 
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According to Jean Delacour and James Pfarr the P.c. Shawi is in the White-Winged pheasant group or family of true pheasants, just like the P. c. Bianchi. You are in the ball park as for as I am concerned, even the experts wood have a hard time distinguishing between the two.

The Yarkant River in western China where the P. c. Shawi pheasants are found, is on about 75 miles east of Tajikistan, where the P. c. Bianchi's live. I would guess that over hundreds of years the two have crossed.

I still say we need new authentic wild genes, here in the states, to add predator alertness and agility to the commercial pen raised gene pool.

I have heard that argument five years ago about new stock from China and avian flu, but I disagree with their reasoning.

This is "my two cents" on the subject. We already have millions of migratory birds that fly over to North America from Asia and Siberia ever the years for thousands of years. In fact our wild Mallard ducks and Magpies our in western states (still expanding east) came from China years and years ago.

Thousands of our Sand Hill cranes and Snow geese hatch on Asian side of the Arctic Circle. These migratory birds would have much better chance of carrying over bird flu to N. America. Than collecting wild Sichuan/Strauchi eggs in the wild fields of China or just wild ringneck eggs (like the Manchurian ringneck or the wild Korean ringneck) in the wild and shipping the eggs over here and then checking the F1 chicks that hatch for bird flu.
 
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Yikes :eek:, they don't get much longer than that! I don't know what he's saying but I can tell he's as crazy about pheasants as the rest of us.
 
Pretty awesome bird. BUT, anyone that pointed their muzzle down toward my dog on point would have been removed from the situation before the flush occurred...inexcusable safety fail.
 
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