The Common Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) is the long-tailed, showy bird originally from Asia — the cock displaying a glowing red facial patch, a shimmering copper-coloured body and a tail that in large individuals can exceed half the total body length. Native to a broad belt from the Caucasus through Central Asia to China, it has been introduced worldwide as a game bird and today lives as a year-round resident of farmland, mainly in southern and central Sweden. The sexes differ markedly: the cock measures 75–90 cm including a spotted tail that alone can reach some 50 cm, while the hen is considerably smaller at 53–63 cm; wingspan runs 70–90 cm and weight 900–1,400 grams, the cock the heavier. He shows bare, glowing red facial skin, an iridescent dark green head and neck, and a golden-brown to copper-red body with black scaled markings; many cocks also carry a white neck ring from eastern races bred into released stock. The hen is uniformly mottled brown with a shorter tail, camouflage suited to ground incubation.
The cock's territorial call is a hard, explosive "kork-kok," often followed by a brief whirring wing flutter; it is heard mainly at dawn and dusk in spring and early summer, while the hen is far more silent and startled birds take off with a loud, cackling alarm. The species is commonest on the plains of Skåne, Halland, Öland, Gotland and Mälardalen, thinning out northward; the population is estimated at 100,000–200,000 pairs, shaped by annual releases for hunting, and hard, snowy winters hit numbers since the pheasant depends on ground-level food. It nests on the ground, the hen scraping a hollow hidden in vegetation and laying 8–15 olive-brown eggs incubated alone for 23–27 days, the precocial chicks leaving soon after hatching. Diet shifts with the seasons — insects, larvae and earthworms dominate in spring and summer, especially for chicks, while seeds, waste grain and berries take over in winter.
Read about this species in Swedish →