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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be appalled by the

62 replies

MummyBerryJuice · 21/07/2010 17:18

blatant disregard for life shown by a blooming tourist to our village?

We live in a beautiful rural village that is over run by tourists in the summer as a popular soap used to be filmed here. I was stuck behind one of these tourists doing about 10mph while driving home from our local 'metropolis' when a pheasant ran out into the road.

The idiot slowed and then proceeded to just drive right over the pheasant.I it would probably have been killed anyway come hunting season but I couldn't help but feel a little sick.

So AIBU?

OP posts:
occludo · 21/07/2010 19:22

EvilTwins Wed 21-Jul-10 17:22:27
I would be willing to bet a local would have done the same. Slowed down to save it damaging the car (I've seen the damage a pheasant can do to a car if its hit at high speed)

Too right. I've only killed 3 or 4 but most locals must have killed hundreds. Completely bashed in the grill on my xkr at 70mph. Luckily it bent out again

ThatBloke · 21/07/2010 19:25

Now, I'm not a pheasant-plucker.....

I think something similar when I see the dead rabbits & stuff on my short, but rural drive to work. And bloody pigeons/doves. They are always running out in front of the wagon, or just standing in the road.

I can see them a way off, & funilly enough, if I slow down & am prepared to stop, I invariably miss them. Of course, things are different in the dark, or if there are other road users about.

I took the mrs on a drive to the west country a couple of weeks ago, & just outside Salisbury, a mole scrabbled across the road in front of us. I've never seen one & never expected to see one crossing a road. He deffo wasn't using the green X code.

So, er to answer your OP, yes & no. It might have been a heartless townie, or just a horrible mistake.

Rockbird · 21/07/2010 19:40

"OP You are not being unreasonable, some people do not have any respect for life, except their own of course,makes me sick tbh."

But it's ok for the OP's rural folk to go and pump lead into its brains a few weeks later? Where's the outcry in the post about that? The OP is the epitome of hypocrisy.

LittleSilver · 21/07/2010 19:50

It's a pheasant. One eats pheasants. They are also not the sharpest knives in the box, QED.

YABU.

TheHeathenOfSuburbia · 21/07/2010 20:39

Well, speaking as a city girl, it was a massive surprise to me that pheasants just stand there and wait for you to mow them down.

Your normal, streetwise bird like a pigeon or a magpie; your car approaches, you maybe slow down to give them a better chance, bird flies away at the last second.

But who knew a pheasant would just stand there looking at the approaching ton of metal, without the slightest sense of worry or alarm?! Not me

TheHeathenOfSuburbia · 21/07/2010 20:41

Disclaimer - this was a few years ago, I did not splat the OP's pheasant.

Original poster
MummyBerryJuice · 21/07/2010 23:16

'But it's ok for the OP's rural folk to go and pump lead into its brains a few weeks later? Where's the outcry in the post about that? The OP is the epitome of hypocrisy.'

Ah, but Rockbird a hunted bird will get eaten. So, you see, a hunted bird is a respected bird

OP posts:
Vallhala · 21/07/2010 23:23

YANBU.

Rockbird, I find both hunting/shooting and acts like the one the OP described abhorrent.

No double standards here!

edam · 21/07/2010 23:31

It's hardly surprising that pheasants haven't evolved the ability to judge traffic speeds in the what, less than a century since motor vehicles became common? Took us humans hundreds of thousands of years to evolve to the point at which we could invent and mass produce the darn things. And still thousands of unfortunate pedestrians get it wrong every year, even now. (Including me - fortunately my brush was with a barely moving vehicle but blimey, it ruddy HURT and cost me, my employer and the NHS a great deal of time and trouble to put right.)

Think I'm somehow winding up demonstrating my solidarity with the poor pheasant.

JaneS · 21/07/2010 23:49

edam, love, it's more to do with the fact that pheasants haven't evolved any abilities.

These birds have been bred by humans for a few hundred years. In the wild, they are easy prey for predators and too stupid (often) to remember where they laid their own eggs. They are slow to fly and the males are brightly coloured, and when they fly, they prefer to take off almost horizontally, with much flapping of feathers and noise.

If they'd been left alone, there is no way they'd be as common on British roads as they are, since they are fundamentally stupid birds. People who enjoy the idea of guns but aren't actually very good, enjoy shooting at them because you have to be a pretty poor shot to fail to bag a pheasant at a shoot. At the end of the day, going under someone's wheels must be a pretty dignified end for
a pheasant.

edam · 21/07/2010 23:53

what's with 'love' exactly?

I grew up in the countryside, I know pheasants aren't going to win University Challenge any time soon (neither are most human beings tbh), but it's a bit unfair to condemn them for not having road sense which they couldn't possibly have evolved anyway!

JaneS · 21/07/2010 23:59

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend, I know it's not very MN-y. I just say it when I feel amused and friendly, and your post made me grin.

But I obviously misjudged.

All I meant was, they are pretty dim, but it's really our fault about that, as we're the ones who chose to rear them in large numbers, usually near to roads. They are ridiculous birds, I know.

IMoveTheStars · 22/07/2010 00:02

waves at arseholio yes! Local battering season has definitely started in Oxford! They don't even have the tell-tale backpacks anymore. snarl.

colditz · 22/07/2010 00:03

i only forgive this level of sentimentality in vegetarians. The rest of you - a pheasant is no bloody brighter than a Mcnugget. It didn't suffer, I doubt it's noticed it's dead yet. They are extraordinarily stupid birds.

edam · 22/07/2010 00:03

Oh, OK, didn't mean to be antsy, is just hard to judge tone here sometimes. And I did enjoy your remarks about pheasant hunters.

JaneS · 22/07/2010 00:04

at Jareth. You guys didn't get held up by some muppet on St. Giles' today walking his entire school tour party down the middle of the road, did you?

At times, I wish tourists were as tasty and legal to shoot as a nice plump pheasant...

IMoveTheStars · 22/07/2010 00:05

rofl colditz

colditz · 22/07/2010 00:06

Pidgeons, I feel for. But pidgeons generally have some sense of slf preservation, and will at least take some action to prevent their own death. Even a chicken will flap about and show that it is trying to move out of the way. A pheasant will sit and look at you.

A city living tourist probably slowed down in the genuine belief that NO LIVING CREATURE could be as stupid as a pheasant is.

occludo · 22/07/2010 00:07

it's a bit unfair to condemn them for not having road sense which they couldn't possibly have evolved anyway!

Yeah Red Dragon leave the pheasants alone. Didn't you know that is speciesist? and likely to get you a severe rap on the knuckles here. If you want to misrepresent our feathered brothers do it elsewhere and keep your vile opinions to yourself. People like you are disgusting and should be hanged and are giving mumsnet a really bad name. Don't you understand that not agreeing with really intelligent posters, like edam for example, can get you into VERY DEEP WATER INDEED

IMoveTheStars · 22/07/2010 00:10

I took the head off a female pheasant on my first trip out after passing my test. There was a car coming the other way, I was on a country road, I did slow down, beep and flash but the stupid thing did not move a muscle.

Renault 5 instant death

Lovesdogsandcats · 22/07/2010 00:23

So, how exactly should ANY wild animal be aware that cars can kill?

occludo · 22/07/2010 00:27

Lovesdogsandcats Thu 22-Jul-10 00:23:07
So, how exactly should ANY wild animal be aware that cars can kill?

Well, sending them all on a road safety cultural awareness course would be an obvious first course of action wouldn't it. And then perhaps throw in a couple of gay,lesbian, transexual and automobilophiliac workshops. That should do the trick. And if that doesn't work then perhaps a few of the local reformed grouse or woodcock "characters" could give them a stiff talking to

Lovesdogsandcats · 22/07/2010 09:19

hmmm

StayFrosty · 22/07/2010 10:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

nickelbabe · 22/07/2010 10:36

very amusing comments

i take a different view on this, actually.

i always think of pheasants as stupidly arrogant birds.

it's that look in their eye as they stroll across the road in front of your car.
"come and have a go if you think you're hard enough" or "you don't have the guts to run me over, who do you think you are?!"

it's even worse when you toot your horn at them - they just jolt their head and go "don't you dare tell me to get out of the road! I'm a valuable prize pheasant, you know!"