Last week, while I was hiking in a forest near from my home town searching for fire salamanders, I stumbled onto some strange silhouettes that were staring at me at the end of a path...
For a moment, I couldn't identify those bizarre forest spirits. I eventually recognize the shape of birds at the distance and because of the back light and the number of animals, I thought for a moment that it was a group of crows feeding on the corpse of some large mammal, a roe deer maybe. But what was almost eerie was the fact that the birds were approaching. We all know that wild birds tend to fly away as you get closer to them so, for a while, I found the situation to be very strange.
As one individual gets closer, I could eventually identify the bird with my camera zoom.
They were Reeve's pheasants, Syrmaticus reevesi, flamboyant birds from the well known Phasianidae family. European readers are likely familiar with Phasianus colchicus, the common pheasant.
Actually, I had met this bird a few times prior to this day. While I was searching for fire salamanders in that forest on previous occasions, I did notice the fleeting sight of this bird and found as well some feathers on the forest ground. I remember well a brief but striking encounter with a small family : I saw a female and its chicks while I was wandering on a path. Within a a few seconds, a male jumped in front of me and by violently flapping its wings tried to distract me. I then caught a glimpse of the female and its babies diving into the forest vegetation seeking for some shelter. The male then immediately vanished at lightning speed. I could barely identify the birds.
In consequence, I was then very surprised to see all those Reeve's pheasant walking toward us. Clearly, they showed curiosity as this forest is barely roamed by visitors.
All the birds were male. Not a single female in the surroundings. We saw more than 50 of them, sometimes at a distance of 1-2 meters only. The various groups followed us as we were heading toward a nearby clearing. With a bit of imagination, we could feel like we were in the middle of one of Hayao Miyasaki movies. ^^
Syrmaticus reevesii males can be over 2 meters long thanks to their long tail. It is sometimes mentioned as being the bird with the longest natural tail feather. As you can see, the male head is white with a black narrow band across its eye, which makes it very distinctive. On the other hand, the females, roughly the same size of the males, are brown with a blackish crown and greyish tail feathers.
The Reeve's pheasant is actually endemic from the forest of central and eastern China. Some individuals have been introduced for hunting or ornemental purposed in some European countries. Maybe the species, in this forest, has managed to breed into a small but healthy population or, more likely, these birds have been raised in farm and have been recently released in this forest in order to sustain forthcoming shooting. That would explain their lack of fear of human presence. That's quite sad to think these magnificent animals are only here to quench the thirst of some people for easy sport. :-(