A Magnificent Pheasant — Mating Call in the Morning Bird Chorus

Early in the morning, before sunrise, the countryside is filled with the beautiful and varied songs of nightingales, song thrushes, and cuckoos. Every now and then, a rough, rasping sound breaks through the harmony — the mating call of pheasants. In these recordings, a magnificently colored pheasant struts across a field, pecking at its breakfast. He is accompanied by a female pheasant who sometimes runs behind him and then suddenly hurries ahead. Out of nowhere, the male stops and lets out his loud, harsh mating call, beating his wings powerfully for a brief moment. For an instant, the whole bird seems to explode with energy. Then calm returns, and he continues strutting, watching attentively, and pecking at the ground. The strong wingbeats intensify his territorial display and surely impress the female pheasants — what a fit and powerful male! The footage in this video was recorded in a nature reserve near Freiburg im Breisgau and shows a wild pheasant in its natural habitat. Many pheasants live polygynously, with one male mating with several hens. This particular bird, however, appears to be more monogamous. The common pheasant, also known as the ring-necked pheasant or hunting pheasant, originally comes from Central and East Asia and was introduced to Europe as early as Roman times around 2,000 years ago. In Germany, pheasants were first mentioned around the year 1250. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, so-called pheasant farms became common at aristocratic courts, especially for hunting purposes. Pheasants use their strong beaks to peck seeds, berries, insects, and even small lizards from the ground.