Almost two years ago, Lorna and I were outside working in the yard when she saw this fairly large bird land in our bamboo. I grabbed my camera and got several decent images of it. We have no clue what it was. We were making it rather nervous so we left it alone and went inside. An hour later, it was gone.
Because I have so many pictures of it, I’m doing the “read more” thing so the page doesn’t take long to load for those who don’t want to see them. Not that it would hurt my feelings any. Well, maybe just a little.
We think it is some sort of pheasant based on the long tail. The eye looks like pheasant, too. But there’s no ring neck. I’ve looked at various images of female pheasants but not many of them have the long tail and none have the read mark on the back of the head. I had to take the photos from a distance without a tripod and through the bamboo it was in. It was a fairly large bird as in at least perhaps 1.5-2′ from head to tail. The tail was as long as the body. In the images, I see bamboo shoots so it is spring still. The photo information on m ‘puter says May ’08. I looked at the archives I keep for the camera and confirmed it was May 7 ’08. If anyone has a clue what this bird is, I’d love to know!
As usual, click on an image for the larger version. You can right-click and select “open in new tab/window” so you can flip back and forth. The larger versions are quite large so be warned.
Probably a lady amherst pheasant.
Very close! The difference is the white feathers at the base of the tail. Confirms that it is some sort of pheasant, tho!