How to Identify a Pheasant

Pheasants are an easy bird to identify. They live in wooded or weedy areas, and aren't always the easiest birds to find. Pheasants generally blend into their habitat. If you can distinguish the bird from its surroundings, you will be able to identify it.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Notice the pheasant's long body. A ring-necked pheasant grows between 20 to 28 inches long. The bird has a long pointed tail, usually held pointed up. With a brown colored body and blue green head, the ring-necked pheasant has a white collar around its neck.

2. View a pheasant along fields, most often in wet areas such as marshes. These birds are scarce in dry areas. They nest in fields as groups with one male and several females.

3. Watch the pheasant scratch the ground with their feet and pick up food with their bills. Pheasants usually hunt for food in groups. They eat seeds, grains and berries, but also insects and worms.

4. Listen for the male pheasant. The bird makes a loud crowing sound.

5. Observe a large diversity in pheasants in the United States. There are 34 different varieties of the bird throughout the country. The most recognizable is the ring-necked pheasant.

Tips & Warnings

• Pheasants build their nests in depressions in the ground using weeds, leaves and brush for bedding.
• Pheasants like to stay in one area and can spend their entire lives in one 700-acre area.
• When the weather is bad, a pheasant can stay in the nest for days without eating.

Resources

• Find out more about pheasants at BirdWeb.org.