Lady A Your Such a Tease

13/04/2015
A trip to Lidlington, Beds in search of possibly the last Lady Amherst's Pheasant. Plastic, tickable, non tickable, introduced........ The Lady Amherst's Pheasant's story is an interesting one. http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=4956  and
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Amherst's_pheasant
I haven't been that keen on going as I'm pretty much in the "plastic" camp. With some time on my hands I thought I would give it a couple of hours of my time as Lidlington is only 40 minutes from my house. I arrived at the site just after 11:00 and joined about 16 other birders. Many including Rob for whom this was his fourth attempt had been on site since first light. The Lady Amherst's Pheasant had been calling earlier in the day but no sightings. Birders came and went and some came back again but still no sign. The highest number of birders I counted was 21 and the lowest 7. I waited and waited telling myself I would just stay a little bit longer and of course the hours went by until I decided to stay until the bitter end! About ten to eight and with the light fading the Lady A started calling quite frequently apparently from the woods to the right hand side of the ride. Then a short period of quiet and then at the top of the ride on the ridge but in the left had corner a Pheasant shaped neck and head for a split second then out of sight. Only myself and one other birder got this glimpse and neither of us had enough detail for positive I.d.
Then more calling from the left hand side of the ride. It must of been the Lady A we saw, oh dear! More calling as the bird made it's way left through the pines and one lucky birder had a quick sighting but definitely the Lady. None of the remaining birders including myself managed to connect and now the light was all but gone and the Lady A was no longer calling. Time now twenty past eight so approaching nine and a half hours for nod-nod gone!!!