Mating Pheasant

You might have to look twice at the image above so as to get your head around the fact that some of those rules like  ' Two into one won't go !'  are broken in this sequence of images without working to hard to find them.

This female pheasant  'Might look like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth'  but she seems to be a bit of a hussy when it comes to Male Ring-neck pheasant,

When she saw one come into her open field at Millpool she kicked up her heels and fluttered her wings to attract its attention and the male could not get to her quick enough.

A second male bird soon arrived on the scene and was followed by a third that raced headlong into the females courtship arena.

The last bird to arrive wasted no time on small talk, He chased and mated with the little hussy immediately perhaps using his athletic advantage over the first two older males.

When the second bird also tried to mate the female got all excited and encouraged all the birds to chase after her as she literally ran circles around them.

Now who was it that stated that " Three was a crowd " because these guys seem to take a very different view on the matter.

And when ' Push comes to shove '  these pheasant have no matter with four.

This dubious looking trio all seem to be collaborating to being part of a  'Team Effort ' and on this occasion they seemed to agree with the plan that the younger and fitter male should give chase to the hussy while the older boys came along for the ride once the female stopped running.

In this final shot the young male catches and mounts the female at the hedgerow and males two and three follow in relay jumping onto the back of the preceding male while creating for me a very confusing finally to this mating sequence.

I sort of got the feeling that although this was a first  in mating behaviour to watch that these amazing birds had done it all before !!