The Yorkshire Vet: Me and best friend, Freddie Pheasant - Julian Norton

Last week, my first instinct was that the bird needed help. Was its mate stranded? Should I follow him to see if she was stuck down a mine shaft, like in the Lassie films? I had a brief conversation with him, and explained that I was going down the trail but I’d be back in about ten minutes. The bird cocked his head and chased after me as I whizzed off down the nearest track. As I sped up, the bird took to the air for a few moments, before thinking better of it and returned to ground level.

On the climb back up, I pondered the pheasant’s situation. The few birds left in the woods were the lucky ones: those who hadn’t been blasted out of the sky by a twelve-bore during the season. But what happened to them now? Bereft of feed supplied by gamekeepers, could these colourful birds survive in nature? Would they start breeding and supply the forest with their own, natural next generation? Or do they rely on befriending local mountain bikers for snacks and companionship?

He was waiting at the top of the hill, which was nice but still strange. I’d expected he would have wandered off to find something more interesting on the forest floor. I talked a bit more and felt like Bob Mortimer in his book, The Satsuma Complex, when he has frequent conversations with a squirrel in the park. Since Freddie Pheasant (I thought he needed a name since he had stayed and waited) had not led me to a disused mine shaft, I concluded he didn’t need any specific assistance. I offered him a fragment of an energy block which I found in my pocket, but he wasn’t interested.

When I returned to the same place a few days later, I did not expect he would still be there so I couldn’t help exclaiming, “Hello Freddie! What are you doing here?” as I arrived at his habitat at the top of the hill. Freddie jumped up and sat on my front tyre, gripping the nobbles tightly. Was this Freddie’s attempt to stop me getting away from him or did he want a closer look at me and the bike. I started to feel I was anthropomorphising, but Freddie’s behaviour reminded me of a swan I once treated with a fishing hook in its leg. With its mate, it pecked on the door of a house next to their lake, as if specifically seeking human assistance. When the family answered the door, the smaller, injured swan lifted its leg off the ground to demonstrate the problem. The story sounded implausible, but the daughter, like all good children these days, had captured the whole episode on her phone. I, too, managed to capture Freddie on my phone, just before he hopped off and meandered back to his woodland idyll. Maybe I’ll see him next weekend?