Kindred spirits

I may have been delighted to see No. 1 Son return home after his long, long holiday but the pheasant wasn't.  In fact he was so miffed he wouldn't speak to me for a few days.

The problem was he had got used to it being just him and me at breakfast and afternoon tea.   When I went down to open up and feed the chickens each morning, he would always be hanging around in the garden or on the wall waiting for his share.  In the late afternoon, he would leg it across the field as soon as I appeared in the garden.  More corn for him, and his lady wife if she put in an appearance.

He was a bit late last week, but he knew I would be in the garden with the chickens at that time of day, and so jumped up on the wall.  Horror of horrors - I was not the only human!  My son and our neighbour were there too.  

Well that wasn't on, was it?   He glared at me, leapt back into the field and marched off, his wife scuttling along behind him wondering what the hell his problem was.   

He decided to teach me a lesson.   When I have corn for him, but he hasn't noticed I'm around, I make a loud "kissing" sound.  He stops grubbing around in the field, looks up, spots me and runs over.   For the next two days whenever I made my "kissing" sound, he looked up, scowled at me and got on with his grubbing.  I rather had the impression that his wife shook her head and raised her eyes skyward - but I could be wrong.

Yesterday morning he reckoned I had been punished enough (and anyway he was missing his corn).  So as I sat watching the chickens doing the gardening, he appeared on the wall.  I apologised and fed him.  We were friends again and that should have been that.  But it wasn't.

That afternoon, he was waiting in the garden for me.  No. 1 Son was with me and decided that if I could get pally with the local wildlife, so could he.  He poured some corn into his hand and held it out towards the pheasant.

"He won't eat from your hand," I said.  "You'll have to put it on the wall or the ground," I said.  "Careful!  Don't frighten him," I said.

So what did the bloody pheasant do?  Came straight over and happily ate from my son's hand.

Men!!!!!