Life in a small town.

Gorgeous George and Sneaky Pete.

Gorgeous George has three wives. He reckons he deserves them, for he really is the most georgous pheasant you've ever seen. He lives in our seven acre meadow, and as it is lambing time I see him and his wives three times a day as I do the rounds. There is nothing he likes better than to show off his golden feathers in the morning sun, to rattle his wings and greet the new day by crowing like a creaky gate. The three hens are quite unmoved by this display and don't even glance in his direction, they don't seem to appreciate their good fortune in having George. (In fact he used to have four wives, but one of them ran off and set up with a dark stranger from the 'L' shape' -an adjacent field.) George for all his magnificance cannot rely on the fidelity of his harem, he has to be vigilent.

The one cloud on George's horizon is Sneaky Pete, a skinny ill favoured pheasant with dull feathers and without a territory or a mate. What he does have is a baseless, heroic confidence in his sex appeal, and a strong desire to use it on one of George's wives.

In the early days he tried a series of full frontal assaults. Useless! A seven acre territory like George's means a lot of open ground to cross. George would easily spot him and move like an exocet missile to intercept. Once they closed, Pete had no chance, George was bigger and stronger,(and more Magnificent.) Pete had to beat a hasty retreat.

What he needed was a diversion, and unwittingly I provided one. Three times a day I drove my quad through George's domain. As I passed, he would rattle his wings at me. Then a dark blurr would appear streaking out from the far edge of the field. When pheasants are racing into battle, they lower their head and hold their tale straight out behind, their little legs are a blurr of motion beneath them, they look like plump feathered arrows. A couple of times Pete nearly got through, but George soon learned and adapted and was ready for him whenever I appeared.

What he needed was a diversion AND cover. Once again I was the provider. One evening I was driving through the field as usual, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark shape drop quietly over the wall on my right. George was looking about expecting the usual death or glory charge from the opposite direction. Pete, (for it was he,) trotted along keeping me between him and the hens. Then at just the right moment he made his move, he darted forward. George was nowhere, Pete was in there!

Unfortunately, for all his cleverness, Pete hadn't really thought things through. All he had time to do was hurl himself passionately at the nearest hen, knocking her to the ground and stumbling straight over the top of her and landing in a big heap on the other side. By the time he recovered the hens had scattered and George was bearing down on him, he spread his wings and got out of there.

There is a lesson here, I think. Its not success that counts, its what you do with it.

So George still has three wives, they are all sitting on eggs at the moment, but If I was George I would examine each egg very carefully - just to make sure there are no sneaky ill-favoured looking ones.