Pheasants - Kыргooл

Pheasant.

Family Phasianidae, order Galliformes. The length of a pheasant is 80-90 cm, with a tail up to 40 cm, consisting of 18 tail feathers. Wingspan is 75-80 cm. The male is black-brown with golden spots. The feathers are glossy, with a black border, and on the head and neck, they are green with a metallic sheen. The wings are reddish-yellow, and the wedge-shaped tail is gray-brown with black transverse stripes.

The female measures about 65 cm in length, with a tail of 30 cm. The wingspan reaches 60-65 cm. The coloration is gray-brown, with dark spots and stripes. Pheasants have unfeathered, scaly legs; the young are yellow-brown, later becoming dark. The male has a spur on the back of the leg, which becomes stronger with age. The female lacks a spur. The male has bare red warty skin around the eyes. Horns made of feathers are visible on the back of the head, especially when agitated. Some species, including hybrids, are distinguished by a white collar, which may be fully expressed or interrupted at the back.

The common pheasant lives in forests with underbrush or in thickets of shrubs. It is mainly found near water, in thickets along river valleys and lake shores, in dense forest undergrowth rich in climbing and thorny bushes, interspersed with small forest clearings, or in shrubs along field edges.

When startled, it rarely flies up into trees, preferring to hide on the ground in grass and bushes.

Pheasants are known for their voracity; they are tireless gatherers of insects, especially harmful ones, and do not shy away from field and forest mice, snails, and they feed on grains, wheat, and seeds of cultivated and wild plants, occasionally visiting vineyards. Their main food consists of seeds, small fruits, and berries.

The nest is built on the ground, lined with grass, dry leaves, or feathers. The full clutch, which the common pheasant begins to lay in early spring, consists of a significant number (up to 20, usually 8-18) of uniformly brown eggs. Sometimes 25-30 eggs from different females can be found in one nest. If the clutch fails, after three weeks the female lays another 6-8 eggs. Incubation lasts 22-28 days. Only the female incubates and leads the chicks; males do not participate in raising the young. The chicks are born reddish with dark stripes, active and independent, but are quite susceptible to diseases during the first two weeks.

The pheasant weighs from 1.2 to 1.8 kg, with the female around 1 kg. The chicks reach the size of adult birds in October-November of their birth year. By this time, all pheasants become quite fat and are a target for hunting.

Birds