Common Pheasant

Phasianus colchicus

The common pheasant, ring-necked pheasant, or blue-headed pheasant, is a bird in the pheasant family (Phasianidae). The genus name comes from Latin phasianus 'pheasant'. The species name colchicus is Latin for 'of Colchis', a country on the Black Sea where pheasants became known to Europeans. Although Phasianus was previously thought to be closely related to the genus Gallus, the genus of junglefowl and domesticated chickens, recent studies show that they are in different subfamilies, having diverged over 20 million years ago. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 529,806 times across 122 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 16°C (typically 4 to 24°C, from 42 areas). That range is wide, so temperature alone does not explain when it turns up.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.