It’s Hard for an Egg to Turn into a Bird

Poor Mrs. Pheasant. There she was, trying to renew the blood line and produce a clutch of eggs to grow into the next generation of pheasants. But a marauder found her eggs, and instead, made a breakfast of them, so that he (or she?) had the nourishment needed to set about producing the next generation of their own species.

At least this marauder was keeping body and soul together. We live in shooting country, and the countryside is crammed with pheasants, imported here in vast numbers simply so they can be the target of barely competent marksmen enjoying their yearly shooting break. Some dead birds find their way to the table via local butchers. Many corpses are quite simply … discarded.

This blackbird may have been luckier. Once hatched, the baby blackbird’s shell simply fell to the ground beneath the nest.

By the way, the featured photo is of male pheasants. Their female counterparts are somewhat dowdier.

For Becky’s #Squares Renew.

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Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

45 thoughts on “It’s Hard for an Egg to Turn into a Bird”

  2. oh no! Poor Mrs Pheasant – I blame those males just strutting around in their finery.

    Arrgh about all the pheasant imports. I enjoy eating pheasant, but do feel guilty sometimes because it isn’t really sustainable eating, and also it isn’t always easy to find given how many are shot.

    Btw have you seen this fascinating summary on what came first the chicken or the egg

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    1. Frankly, Becky, I’d sooner you ate them rather than have them rot in a ditch. I’m looking forward to following up that link you’ve sent me. Will it answer that unanswerable question??

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      1. Awful they just let them rot. Really don’t understand the mentality

        and yes it kinda does. You’ll never look at an egg quite the same way again!

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      2. Quite. Imagine starting as a Dutch egg, then hatching and being transported in crammed cages all the way to a British pheasantry. In 2019, there were 3,299,780 of them, and 28,248,773 eggs as well. I wish I hadn’t done that particular piece of research

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  8. The shoots local to us have gradually closed down which is positive. I like to think that the pheasants we get in the garden are safe from guns at least but who knows. We see males and females but never youngsters. That continues to puzzle me. Maybe they wait to reach maturity before venturing so close to human environments.

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    1. That’s a fair point. We see endless youngsters near Fountains Abbey, where sadly, long-ago-established shooting rights still exist, but never one here. Odd.

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    1. Oh Andrew, I recently came across a shoot. The poor birds are literally feet away thanks to the beaters. And they miss, some of the so called marksmen. Grrr. Just off to read your blackbird post.

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  13. Great picture of the two peasants. I know that I’ve seen a pair close to where I live, but just one pair. So I had to check. There are pheasants but not that many. They can be hunted from mid-autumn until early spring. And they originated somewhere in Asia – so importing them for sport (and sometimes eating) seems to have a long tradition.

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    1. Well quite. Pheasants and their eggs are part of the natural food chain for all kinds of creatures. Just not men in tweed jackets and bearing guns.

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  15. I’d love to see the end of game (?????!!!!) shooting and the argument that it aids land preservation is totally invalid. Perhaps we should line up the corporate landowners and their clients and shoot them!

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    1. I’m in Peter. Such specious arguments to defend the monoculture that is the shooting party’s Holy Grail. I can find nothing to defend the ‘sport’.

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  16. It’s hard for an egg to turn into a bird – I love that title, Margaret! I’m thinking like you, at least the marauder was keeping body and soul together. Shooting for pleasure (???), now that’s a different thing.

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