Believed to be Extinct Lady Amherst’s Pheasant Shocked Everyone with a Sighting

A student may have found a rare exotic bird that has been thought to be extinct in the United Kingdom.

The fowl, known as Lady Amherst's pheasant, is a sight to see. It has a red crest and plumage that is brilliantly colored in orange, blue, green, and purple. Its tail feather is long and exaggerated in a black and white pattern, measuring 3 to 4 feet in length.

The birds were introduced to England in the 1890s by Lady Sarah Amherst, who brought them to her estate from their native China and Myanmar. By 1990 there were only about 20 of the pheasants left in the U.K. The last Lady Amherst's was believed to have been discovered and photographed in 2015.

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2021 Sighting

That is, before Sophie Pearson, a student at St. Andrews University, discovered the rare bird when gazing out her flat window on March 5, 2021.

"At first, I couldn't believe what I saw, particularly considering the bird's height, and I mistook it for a peacock," Pearson told the Courier. "We ran out to get a better look, and to our delight, it didn't run and seemed to be very docile."

Pearson fed the pheasant rice, and the bird lingered for about 20 minutes in her backyard.

Pearson told the Courier, "I was very awestruck as it was an amazing-looking creature and the colors were so bright." "Eventually, it went into a tree and then vanished, even though I left out more food."

The student notified the British Trust in Ornithology (BTO) about the extraordinary sighting.

"The bird is now believed to be extinct in the wild in the United Kingdom, but it's not inconceivable that a 'rogue' bird may be alive in Fife," Paul Stancliffe, BTO's publicity officer, told the Courier. "Despite their vivid colors, pheasants can be elusive and difficult to track down when they wish to be; who knows?"

Why the Fowls Went Extinct in the Wild?

Lady Amherst's Pheasant's largest British population developed itself along the Greensand Ridge of Bedfordshire, extending spontaneously west into Buckinghamshire after the species' deliberate arrival at Woburn in the 1890s. The area's dense mixed fir, ash, oak, and beech woodlands (with an added rhododendron understory) tend to be a reasonable substitute for the area's native deciduous forest and bamboo thickets. Related habitat elsewhere in the UK, on the other hand, seems to have struggled to support several other introduction attempts over the last two centuries.

By any interpretation, this seems to be an extinction curve, and given that the species has only been present in Britain for about 125 years - at times chemically fed - it may be suggested that, like the Red-winged Laughingthrush on the Isle of Man, Lady Amherst's Pheasant was never fully 'established.'

2015 Sighting

One was seen in woods near Bedford in 2015, and another was spotted in St Andrews in 2019.

'We thought it had fled captivity,' Sophie continued.

'I contacted the university's bird society, who said a local woman had seen it on occasion but didn't know where it came from.'

'We've been asking where it's been all this time; it's a mystery.'

'We just needed to make sure it was a Lady Amherst's pheasant, so we contacted the British Trust for Ornithology, who agreed it was.

'They said seeing one in the wild was very unusual, and they were fascinated that it had been seen here before.'

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