Pheasant Shooting: Aiming to Have a Good Time
For the lover of country sports, there are few more glorious pursuits than pheasant shooting.
Tramping through the wild grass with a group of like-minded enthusiasts, waiting for that thrilling moment when the pheasant brakes cover and you pull the trigger. Returning in the evening with a brace of fresh game, to sit by a roaring fire.
If you are a true man or woman of the country, you will understand the exhilaration of pheasant shooting. You are a hunter and have communed with nature in the most primal of ways. And had a jolly good time into the bargain!
A long tail – and long history
The term 'pheasant' refers to a family of long-tailed birds closely related to the quail and partridge. Male pheasants are very distinct from the females, with brightly-coloured feathers and 'wattles' (fleshy growths hanging from the neck and throat).
Here in Britain we have been hunting and dining on pheasant since before the Norman Conquest, and this commonest of game birds may originally have been brought to these shores by the Romans, who valued its succulence and rich flavour.
The first written reference to the pheasant dates all the way back to 1059, when King Edward the Confessor is recorded as having offered the canons of Waltham Abbey in Essex a pheasant as an alternative to the brace of partridges to which they were entitled.
Shortly afterwards arrived the Normans who passed the first laws outlawing pheasant poaching. This noble bird was not sport but food to our medieval ancestors and we find regular references to the popularity of pheasant dishes throughout the Middle Ages.
In 1465, the then Archbishop of York staged an inauguration banquet at which no less than 200 pheasants were served.
On the wing
Despite a reference to “birding” in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, pheasant shooting as we know it today dates back to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Charles II’s courtiers brought flintlock rifles back to Britain with them and the present custom of shooting birds on the wing began.
The first known illustration of a shot pheasant appeared not long afterwards – in the book Hawking or Faulconry published in 1686.
It took about a century for pheasant shooting to become widespread, thanks in part to widespread changes in land ownership during the 18th Century.
Out in the Field
Cowans Sporting has been providing country sports enthusiasts with the best in driven game shooting for ten years now. Visit their site to book your place on exciting pheasant shooting days across the country.