Golden Pheasant

May 20 2012.  As a rule there are no Golden Pheasants in Ontario except perhaps in a petting zoo or wildfowl park; or so I thought.  But today was evidently made for breaking rules; now there’s one at Rondeau Provincial Park!.  I was up at dawn walking a quiet path at the south end of Rondeau, listening to the many warblers, peewees and thrushes when a Golden Pheasant wandered my way. It was in the middle of the path and walking straight towards me.  It was apparently oblivious to a whole host of incongruities: the absurdity of the moment, its exposure to any of a number of predators and the fact that it really should be in western China.  I’m sure I was more baffled by the pheasant than the pheasant was by me.  We passed and nodded a Good Morning to each other, and as I stood there looking back agape and scratching my head, the pheasant just kept walking; off to see about a cup of coffee or something like that I suppose.

Later I stopped at the park’s interpretive centre and tried to appear blasé when I asked about the pheasant.  I expected them to say something like: “Oh that! We see him around the picnic areas all the time.”  But they didn’t.  Instead they were flabbergasted, one of them turned and yelled for Steve, the park’s birding guru.  Steve appeared and shared their bemusement, then slowly started to retrieve a distant memory of someone losing a pheasant a couple of years ago.  Why anyone would bring a pheasant to Rondeau Provincial Park is beyond me, but stranger things happen.  If someone’s loss is the explanation, then this bird has survived for two years or more, mixing in with all the other local fauna, without a hope of finding a mate and just hanging around. Most odd.

Other than that it was a bird-rich day again with Canada, Magnolia and Tennessee Warblers passing through.  At a nearby marshy pond a mud flat was host to dozens of Ruddy Turnstones, Black–bellied Plovers and Dunlins.  I also watched and photographed this obliging Willow Flycatcher who was happily singing its trademark ‘Fitz-bew’ song.