Silvery Grey Backed Pheasant.

[corylus]

We have had a mature male pheasant in the fields behind us for a week or so, he has much lighter/greyish/silver feathers on his back and paler chest feathers than the resident cock pheasant and his mate. There is no fighting between these two birds and he's coming into the garden regularly to eat the spilled seeds from the bird feeders and seems to be used to people.

Is he just a genetic mutation with the light feathers or what, any ideas?

[BRIGHT SPARK]

We get many cock pheasants in an array of colours ...turquoise green through to grey.They seem quite common.

[Chipchopper]

I think these are colour variations produced by the pheasant breeders, I've seen quite a lot of those silvery ones in recent years, plus also some without the traditional white ring around the neck, and some dark green, almost black ones.