Thanks to a missing hen pheasant in our (rural) Cambridgeshire garden, here's my first post. Hi !
for the last 2 weeks, the pheasant's been incubating about 10 eggs under the hollyhocks outside our kitchen window. This morning there was no sign of her or the eggs, no discarded shells, no feathers and no sign of a dust-up. It's some time since we saw any foxes but a couple of squirrels have tried jumping onto the hanging feeders, and we have a rookery. Young rooks have been crowding onto the feeders a few metres from the pheasant early in the morning for the last 3 or 4 days but disappear pronto as soon as we appear. Could they be the culprits? If so, they made a neat job of removing the eggs. Can corvids do that? The pheasant had several days to go before hatching her brood, so I'd like to know what became of them. Any ideas?
Chris
Hi Chris
Welcome to the forum.
It's so sad when this happens, especially if you have become attached to the bird. There are so many predators about to snatch eggs and young chicks. It could really be any of them. The mother bird has probably just abandoned the empty nest. I hope she gets a chance to have another brood.
As it has been said many times on this forum - nature can be so cruel
Cheers
Pipit
Thanks for the welcome Pipit ! Since sending my 1st post, the pheasant has been back, looked at the nest and then stood a few feet away 'calling', presumably for her brood. I've seen this when chicks have been picked off by magpies but not over lost eggs. Bereaved mothers generally run around cheeping for their chicks for about 3 days after the last one's gone. I saw this one rush off the nest and attack a rook on the ground a day or two ago. Good mother, but I think this might have happened again this morning and that the other rooks raided the nest while she was off the nest.
As for attachment - definitely! But I've been feeding a group of 'wild' pheasants for some years and have to grit my teeth when they go down. I know most of them individually, but if I hadn't fed them they wouldn't have come here every day, so I'm afraid I'm not entirely innocent.
As for another clutch - perhaps, but I don't hold out much hope for them. I'd still like to know whether corvids take whole eggs away... and where to.....
Cheers,