A Pheasant Start to the Morning

I got a delightful start to the morning with a not-quite-chance encounter with a beautiful green pheasant near the Tama River.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been fortunate enough to cross tracks with pheasants in a few places.

They’re beautiful birds, the males are at least, and I loved being able to catch a glimpse of them, sometimes up close.

And being a photography aficionado, I was keen on getting a good shot.

I’d tried with my mobile phone camera, but the photos weren’t much chop.

They were grainy and out of focus, and it was hard to get a decent picture.

But I saw pheasants in a few places on a ride yesterday and mentioned it to Mrs. Kangaeroo, who implored me to take a decent camera on my morning ride and get some good photos of the pheasants.

And today I listened to her.

And I was blessed with a wonderful encounter with a pheasant.

Turning onto the cycling track from the Tama Ohashi Bridge, I noticed a little shadow off the track in the distance.

I knew it was a pheasant.

I rode up to the bird slowly, removing the lens cap and extending the zoom to get as close as possible.

I was amazed to be able to get within a few meters of the bird and fired off some shots, having little concern for whether they were good or not, but just trying to get the images.

A bloody jogger staggered along, apparently deliberately huffing and puffing loudly and scared the pheasant.

The bird fled, but only to the bottom of the embankment and not into the bushes and out of sight.

I got to take lots of photos, albeit at a distance.

There were a couple of other places where I fancied my chances of getting a shot, so it was time to go.

I scattered a few handfuls of the bird seed I had brought with me and rode off.

Unfortunately, that was to be my only encounter with a pheasant this morning.

And even worse, the photos I took weren’t nearly as impressive as I had thought they would be when I rode off after taking them.

Still, it was good to get some shots, and a wonderful experience to come up so close to such a beautiful bird.

Update: Got to see my new little mate again today (the day after the above photos were taken) and got even better shots.