Yesterday morning we had two unexpected visitors. I saw them as they hesitantly and delicately came around the patio just outside the dining room – all prettily dressed in fancy feathers and looking as though they expected breakfast. Very different to our usual breakfast visitors, the rooks.
My camera is still missing, so I have borrowed an image for illustrative purposes!
I went outside, with half a loaf of stale bread and scattered some chunks for them, moving smoothly and quietly. They temporarily scampered (on foot, not bothering to take off) back in the dining room direction, but soon reappeared once I had returned indoors. I looked them up in my bird book. Strangely they weren’t there, but on line I have decided they are Red-Legged Partridge – but why they should suddenly decide to visit my garden I don’t know.
I had always assumed that the partridge family is bred in captivity and then released for the hunting season, just as their cousins the pheasants are: but it appears that isn’t so. They were originally introduced for sport, but seem to have naturalised over here
“The Red-legged Partridge was introduced to Britain in the 1600s by Charles II, having brought them from France to provide target practice for guns. They are now resident and outnumber our native Grey Partridge.” (from this article) However, unlike the red squirrel / grey squirrel problem, the decline in grey partridge numbers does not correlate with the increase of red-legged variety.
I did wonder though, given the brave nature of these two, if they hadn’t been reared and released just like their cousins.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Very pretty Pseu, I think they make sort of a chuka chuka sound when they get going. We see a few around here, but not for some time, they’ve obviously decided your area is better 😉
What has happened to your camera?
Do you have a pear tree, Pseu? That might explain it 🙂
The Earl of Cawdor’s estate which stretches from Cawdor down to the Findhorn, is awash in these gamebirds, particularly in the valley where his property is bordered by the Findhorn, near Dulsie Bridge. The Red partridge is the more common of the two, in Scotland. At certain times of the year, you have to drive so slowly within the estate that a tractor would overtake you, the roads are so full of partridge, snipe, and pheasant, strolling along as if they own the place. God forbid you should run them over, when they have been bred purely to shoot them out of the sky in due course. “Drive carefully: Young pheasants” is a common enough road sign in these parts, the irony of which usually triggers a quiet chuckle, with its implication that you mustn’t kill them – that privilege rests with the signposter and his friends!
By the way have we heard if Low Wattage is prepared to seize the Photo Baton?
There are a lot of estates on the Chilterns that rear these for shoots. Not all get shot, some go feral and survive for many years, they get crafty.
Their natural milieu are the large open bowls on the dip slope of the downs which are either natural pasture or grain crops.
They usually fly in flocks and wheel around in tight circles and as such are far harder to shoot than pheasant.
Plus their season opens nearly a month earlier than pheasant which extends the season on the shooting estates.
They are in your garden because of hunger, it has been a long hard winter for birds. Scatter bird seed for them on the ground, they are not aerial eaters. Don’t give them too much bread, they have a problem digesting it, buy some wild bird seed.
Re birds there are some interesting pics of bald eagles being hungry on Outdoors you might like to look at.
Val: it has disappeared. Very mysteriously
Bravo: only a pear quince!
CWJ: No I have heard nothing from him
Christina: Thank you for that
PS… has someone edited and moved the picture?
Pseu, a pear quince…have you ever tried Quince rakia? It is my favourite 🙂
Pseu
I moved the picture, as you know members are encouraged to limit their usage of the front page and use the more ‘tag’ to keep the front page uncluttered.
I’ve had to insert 4 or 5 this weekend. I’m becoming quite arbitrary about it, I do try and move the picture to the top of the post to retain interest and reinsert the text elsewhere.
Please remember, if you are unhappy with anything thats been done you can re-edit, it is your post after all 😉
That’s fine Soutie! (I meant to insert a ‘more’ tag, but was distracted by something else as I posted.)
Quince Rakia… recipe please. Te quince is only a couple of years old and I haven’t had any fruit yet, though I do have Japanese quinces… would it work with them?