The country of Georgia
regards pheasants with a high degree of praise. For example, the official
mascot of the 6-day 2015 European Youth Olympic Festival held in Tbilisi,
Georgia, for the first time, was called PEAKY, representing peak and youth. The
mascot was a pheasant, representing speed and agility, from the Kolkheti
region, symbolic of the legend which gave Tbilisi its name. King Vakhtang I
Gorgasali of Georgia hunted and shot a falcon that had injured a pheasant. Both
birds fell from the sky and landed in hot springs. The king built a city near
the hot springs in Eastern Georgia (Iberia) and named it Tbilisi, meaning warm
place or warm springs.
During the 15 June
2015 floods that destroyed Tbiliisi Zoo and resulted in the deaths of people
and animals, the pheasants survived. They are still there.
Some of the pheasants include the Swinhoe’s Pheasant, the Lady Amberst’s
Pheasant, and the Reeve’s Pheasant.
The Swinhoe’s Pheasant (Lophura swinhoii) is also known as the Taiwan blue pheasant, endemic
to Taiwan. They are a very striking bird. The male Swinhoe's pheasant has a
glossy blue-purple chest, stomach and back, with a white nape, white tail
feathers, a white crest and bright red wattles (the fleshy parts that hang down
from the head or neck). The female is brown marked with yellow arrow-shaped
spots and patterns, and has maroon outer feathers. Swinhoe's pheasants have red
legs.
The Lady Amherst’s
Pheasant (Chrysolophus amherstiae) was named after Sarah, a British
woman and the wife of William Pitt Amherst, the Governor General of Bengal. He
sent the first specimen of the pheasant to London in 1828. The species is
native to southwestern China and far northern Myanmar.
The adult male is 100–120 cm (39-47 inches) in length with
an 80 cm tail, making the total size bigger than the Swinhoe’s pheasants at 79
cm (31 inches) long. The Lady Amherst’s Pheasant
has a white and black cape, with a red crest. Their long tail is grey and their
backs have red, blue, dark green, white and yellow feathers. The female is a
duller brown colour all over.
The Reeve’s Pheasant (Syrmaticus reevesii) is a large pheasant endemic to
China. It is named after the British naturalist John Reeves, who first
introduced them to Europe in 1831. Males measure 210 cm (83 inches) long and is
brightly coloured with a golden, white, and red feathers, and grey legs. The
male has an extremely long silvery white tail, which is mentioned in the 2008
edition of the Guiness World Records for being the longest natural tail feather
of any bird species in the world. Females are smaller
and lighter with brown and blackish feathers.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
Comments
Post a Comment