Elizabeth and Tweeters,

Quite a few years ago, I remember reading an account-- I believe it
was by Dr. Bob Nero-- of a Sharp-tailed Grouse that gave aggressive
displays toward cars on a rural road in Manitoba. Each time a car came
down the road, the grouse would give an aggressive display and rush
briefly toward the car. Having successfully "chased off" the car, the
grouse would repeat the action when the next car came by. This sounds
like misdirected territorial behavior.

The difference between this and your pheasant is that the grouse
didn't actually run after the cars (might be hard to do when cars are
travelling at 50 mph or more). It seems odd that the pheasant is
chasing cars in midwinter, rather than in the breeding season, but
this also sounds like misdirected territorial behaviour. The pheasant
probably regards your car as an intruder in its territory, and is
trying to run you off!

Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus at telus.net



----- Original Message -----
From: Elizabeth Smith <esmith at coastaccess.com>
To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 1:06 AM
Subject: Car Chasing Pheasant


> Has anybody ever heard of car chasing behaviour in pheasants? A
pheasant
> has recently moved into my neighborhood and I was vaguely aware of
it
> running alongside my car until one day last week when I was afraid
it was
> venturing out too far into the pavement. I stopped the car and it
stopped
> too. When I started again it started too. Again and again. I
finally had
> to gun the car to get ahead of it. Since then it has chased after
my car
> each of the several times I passed it. Today, it was walking south
as I
> approached going north. When it saw my car it spun around and
chased north
> after me. Any ideas?
>
>