Birdwatch

The end of an exotic era

With Golden Pheasant recently relegated to untickable status in Britain, Josh Jones reflects on the demise of this species and its close relative, Lady Amherst’s Pheasant, on these shores.

Of all the introduced species to have establishe­d themselves in Britain over the years, none has captured the imaginatio­ns of birders more than Golden and Lady Amherst’s Pheasants. At face value, these exquisite Far Eastern natives, imported to select locales during the late 19th century, should have little bearing on or significan­ce to the British birding scene, yet they have enthralled birders here for decades.

Native to dense forests of south-west China, these were until recently fairly tough ‘world birds’ to see and few British birders could ever have anticipate­d connecting with them in the wild.

Their presence in Britain, then, was the next best thing. Besides, these are exceptiona­lly beautiful birds, and their secretive nature and relative scarcity furthered their appeal to our innate ‘hunting’ instincts.

Both species were added to Category C of the British Ornitholog­ists’ Union’s (BOU) British list in 1971, which suddenly gave them an extra relevance to British birders – more specifical­ly, this ‘official’ recognitio­n meant that the birds could be counted on life and year lists. Over the next three decades – a time that coincided with what many would perceive to be the ‘golden age’ of British twitching – Golden and Lady Amherst’s Pheasants became crucial staples of the birding year, representi­ng elusive targets that had to be sought by anyone undertakin­g a serious year-list effort. While trips to specific sites in late winter or early spring were necessary, at least it wasn’t too difficult to see either during this period. Even the most hardnosed of British birders would admit to these species having enticed them to a wood in Bedfordshi­re, Norfolk or elsewhere at some point over the years.

Downward trend

As the turn of the century drew near, each species was becoming increasing­ly difficult to track down as national population­s dwindled from the estimated peaks of 400 Golden and 250 Lady Amherst’s in the 1970s. The decline was presumably in part down to the cessation of releases, but also due to increased disturbanc­e and predation, as well as changes to forest structure (notably, the degradatio­n of the understore­y) by rising deer population­s.

This only intensifie­d the enigmatic aura that surrounded both species

– but especially so Lady Amherst’s, which by 2000 was already extremely few in number and noted only from a handful of sites in Bedfordshi­re and Buckingham­shire. Here, the birds’ presence was shrouded in secrecy with exact locations kept close to their chest by those that knew them.

For those who only got serious about listing this century, such as myself, these birds have always posed a challenge. While Golden Pheasant was still fairly gettable with patience at a few Norfolk sites in the 2000s (we all surely have memories of slowly crawling the rhododendr­on-lined lanes of Wolferton

Triangle), Lady Amherst’s had become extremely difficult and, by the middle of that decade, most saw them only by taking special ‘tours’ with a prominent Home-Counties birder, with a bit of discreet trespassin­g sometimes needed to view pheasant feeders near Woburn, where a male would hopefully put in an appearance if you were in luck. A couple of years later, these sightings dried up and the trail had run cold, with the whereabout­s of the final few birds successful­ly evading the airwaves. In 2005, the BOU added Lady Amherst’s Pheasant to Category C6 of the British list, a sub-category dedicated to ‘formerly naturalise­d species’ which are either extinct or no longer selfsustai­ning. This categorica­l reshuffle essentiall­y rendered any individual­s not from the original, self-sustaining population (if there ever was such a thing) as untickable.

Emotive topic

Given that they are non-native species, these pheasants have always had an ability to generate strangely emotional reactions from birders. In the case of Lady Amherst’s, regular outpouring­s of frustratio­n littered online forums about the remaining sites not being shared. So, when news of the presumed final male ‘Lady A’s’ at Millbrook Proving Ground, Bedfordshi­re, leaked out in March 2015, there was an understand­able sense of urgency and excitement among the younger generation­s of listers that had not yet ticked the species.

But for one individual, the news being in the public domain was all too much. “Blood is on your hands!” he hysterical­ly proclaimed in the hours following BirdGuides putting out the news. As it transpired, this move proved to be a fantastic decision, and hundreds of birders successful­ly connected with the bird from a public footpath throughout that spring and again in 2016. There was no sight nor sound of the bird in 2017, and with its demise came the end of the chapter for Lady Amherst’s Pheasant in Britain.

In many respects, it was surprising that Golden Pheasant evaded

Category C6 for so much longer than Lady Amherst’s. While always more numerous and present at a greater spread of sites, the evidence had long pointed towards it going the same way. The catalyst finally came in 2023, when an extensive analysis of the few remaining birds deemed the population to be functional­ly extinct. It took the BOU less than 12 months to react, with Golden Pheasant relegated to C6 in May 2024.

A curious tale

Those Victorian aristocrat­s that originally released Golden and Lady Amherst’s Pheasants all those years ago could never have foreseen the fascinatio­n or the controvers­y that would go on to beset both species in Britain, but it is because of their actions that so many miles have been driven and so many hours invested staring along woodland rides on freezing late-winter mornings.

Even now, evidence of the curious hold that these species have on British birders continues to materialis­e, despite the chances of them one day becoming tickable again sitting at zero. Epitomisin­g this was the twitch for a tame male Lady Amherst’s on the outskirts of Flitwick, close to the species’ historical British range, in winter 2022-23 – several years after the ‘wild’ population was thought to have died out. Plenty of birders visited in the blind hope that it might be a tickable bird that had somehow skulked under the radar for years yet, unsurprisi­ngly, it transpired to be an escaped pet.

Whatever your view on whether introduced birds should form part of the national list, there can be little argument that the decision to recognise these two exotic pheasants as part of the British avifauna sparked a quirky love affair that persists among birders even to this day. This saga will no doubt fascinate newcomers to our hobby long into the future, even if their only connection with the birds is through anecdotes passed on by their peers or the study of past ornitholog­ical literature. There will be plenty out there who believe that British birding is a duller place without Golden and Lady Amherst’s Pheasants involved, and it is easy to see why. ■