Golden Pheasant

[dogfish]

I saw a Golden Pheasant at the weekend in the North East of Scotland (Banffshire Coast). Wow! Spectacular looking creature. First time I've seen one on these in my 42 years. How rare a sighting was this in that part of the world?

[andyjevs]

I used to use their feathers for tying fishing flies.

There's loads of different varieties of pheasant...the silver pheasant is, IMHO, as handsome as the golden.

[nickmo]

And only 7 sitings noted on the bird diary here: http://www.birddiary.co.uk/bsearchres.asp

Huge site with tons of links for the bird watchers - see link to Aberdeenshire in SCottish pages for local interest http://www.fatbirder.com/links/listing_and_racing/twitching.html

[logman]

I've also very occaisionaly seen the odd golden pheasant the appears to be living wild, I think they sometimes stray from private collections, I saw a "Lady Amerhurst pheasant in a field once, absolutely stunning !

Come to think of it they was all close to large country estates in north herts..

[dogfish]

Thanks all. Reckon it must've been an escapee. Impressive, non the less.