Cartoonist & Writers Diary V

No Spring Chicken

Today I decided to go and have a wander through my woodland to see what Autumn was doing to the leaves, when all of a sudden, about 20 yards to my left, I espied a magnificent pheasant who was just standing watching me.

He stood fixedly against a backdrop of golden brown hues as a gentle breeze ruffled his feathers. He looked majestic. He looked regal. He looked at one with his world.

Slowly I took my camera out, zoomed in and reeled off a few shots. The pheasant, sensing I was no threat, started walking over to me, cawing gently: I couldn't believe my luck.

As it got closer I continued to take photo after photo after photo and still it kept on coming.

When it actually came up to about two feet from me I switched to the video, making the most of the 'Attenborough' moment; still it continued cawing and rooting around as I calmly assured it that I meant no harm.

It froze, fixed me with a gimlet eye then my whole world turned to spit and feathers.

The pheasant went ballistic; rising into the air like a seriously miffed Phoenix with open wings, and oh boy those wings were big, bigger than I thought they would be. I tried to fend him off but he was having none of it. I was on his land and he was going to evict me.

I screamed and flapped and swore, and at one point I think I even told him this was my land and I had the deeds to prove and and he didn't?

Not being able to follow my cutting legal logic my attacker carried on his relentless assault and within a short period of seconds he had gained more land than the British army did in two weeks at Passchendaele.

I realised that if I didn't do something fast I was about to crash into the road and ran the risk of getting flattened by a passing car, and it was only the thought that my death certificate would read: Death my pheasant attack that I was spurred on to greater things. So I picked up a stick and started beating him back.

After what seemed like an age and a battle that would've inspired the gods to poetry I eventually pushed him over a precipice that led to the lower quadrant of my forest. He hovered in mid air, beating those fearsome wings, cawed one more time, his eyes raging with the fury of his dinosaur ancestors then turned and flew down to the woodland below.

I rested against a tree, fighting to get my breath back while he just looked up at me with an expression that said:
"Kicked your ass didn't I?!"

As I walked away, a little shaky, I thought:

'I don't believe it, I've just been mugged by a bird'. Is this even possible?

Dear reader, this is a cautionary tale. Nature is red in tooth and claw out there and should be taken further than simply at face value. 

It's all well and good when you are driving aimlessly about the countryside from the security of you towns or cities, and when you come across pretty birds wandering about, you automatically 'coo' and 'ah'. But don't be fooled by these little subversives. Don't let their rustic and seemingly harmless demeanour fool you, these little thugs are the skinheads of the countryside and have the skill sets and dead eye expressions that wouldn't look amiss on a Taliban enforcer.

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