noun

• A large long-tailed game bird native to Asia, the male of which typically has very showy plumage.

  Family Phasianidae: several genera and many species, in particular the common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), which has been widely introduced for shooting

  ‘I watched lapwings competing for nest sites on the damp fields where I also saw pheasants, grey partridges, teal and mallards.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Game bird rearers say the demand for pheasants and partridges is rising as more country estate owners and farmers cash in on the boom.’
  • ‘Burnett says young pheasants are especially vulnerable to buzzard attacks.’
  • ‘For close-flushing game like pheasants or quail, you simply took your time when the bird got up.’
  • ‘Of all our feathered friends pheasants offer the most gorgeous sight to behold, particularly the male ones.’
  • ‘For a decade landowners and gamekeepers have been fighting for licenses to kill birds of prey in order to preserve grouse and pheasants for shooting.’
  • ‘Unable to guarantee bags - unlike pheasants, grouse cannot be reared in captivity - income can be patchy.’
  • ‘Even the most parvenu journalist is, or should be, taught at his first shoot that grouse and partridges are counted in brace, pheasants singly.’
  • ‘You wonder how those ring-necked pheasants got from China all the way to South Dakota.’
  • ‘A large number of people in the Calry area have been pheasant shooting but the number of pheasants that have been shot is well down on other years.’
  • ‘Three young hen pheasants on the roadway make me brake suddenly and almost come to a full stop.’
  • ‘The pheasant is a beautiful bird and though not native still has adapted very well to living in the Irish countryside.’
  • ‘Go for a walk on the land under threat and you will hear larks, pheasants, you'll see deer and at night you'll hear foxes and owls.’
  • ‘He shoots ducks, pheasants, wild boar, and in self-defense he wouldn't hesitate to kill a bear.’
  • ‘We'd be out in the fields trying to flush pheasants, and flocks of migrating blackbirds would appear.’
  • ‘He claims that pheasant and partridge are neither wild nor natural and are not an alternative to factory farmed meat.’
  • ‘I'm a country boy so it was inevitable really that I would start shooting partridge and pheasant.’
  • ‘A game shooting organisation has condemned an intensive method of rearing pheasants so that country estates can charge visitors high prices to shoot the birds for sport.’
  • ‘Mr Richardson raised more than 33,000 pheasants and organised shoot days during his employment before he was made redundant in 1990.’
  • ‘Instead of the turkey, a boiled or roasted chicken (with the brown meat a little underdone) or a brace of stewed or roasted pheasants can be used.’