November 15: Day of the Pheasant

November 15 is the Day of the pheasant in the French Revolutionary Calendar, so here are ten things you might not know about pheasants:

1. The pheasant is native to Asia, from between the Black and Caspian Seas to Manchuria, Siberia, Korea, Mainland China and Taiwan. They can now be found all over the world, thanks to their adaptability to different environments and the fact that humans introduced them everywhere so they could hunt them.
2. Pheasants have been hunted by humans since the stone age.
3. The word pheasant comes from the ancient town of Phasis, an old city in Western Georgia. The scientific name colchicus is Latin for "pheasant from Colchis", which also refers to the west of Georgia; the Ancient Greek word for a pheasant is Phasianos ornis, meaning "bird of the river Phasis".
4. Male birds (roosters) are colourful. Their body plumage is barred bright gold and brown plumage with Green, purple and white markings. The head is bottle green with a small crest and distinctive red wattle. Females (hens) have mottled brown plumage all over.
5. Pheasants can fly, but prefer to run. Running, they can reach eight or ten miles an hour.
6. When they choose to fly, often to escape predators, they can cruise at around 30mph and can manage 56mph if they're in a hurry.
7. When it's hot, pheasants breathe rapidly (quickly exhale and inhale) to cool down and maintain stable body temperature.
8. Pheasant hunting season in the UK is 1 October – 1 February, under the Game Act 1831. Historically, it was an expensive pastime as the usual method was to employ a "beater" who would disturb the pheasants so they would fly into shooting range. It was popular with the royals. King George V once shot over a thousand pheasants out of a total of 3,937 in December 1913 during a competition with a friend.
9. Typically, male pheasants can have a harem of up to 7 hens. The average clutch size of a pheasant is 12 eggs but about 30% of the chicks typically don't survive.
10. The ring-necked pheasant is the state bird of South Dakota, one of only three U.S. state birds that is not a species native to the United States.