to be shocked someone hung dead pheasant on my front gate

[annoyednow]

Opened my front gate around 10minutes ago to let cat in and there was something hanging on the front gate. I am in pj's, so husband went out and there was a dead pheasant hanging from string from our front gate. We live in London.

I don't know if it was some prank by kids or something sinister.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

I couldn't see in the dark which it was. If it had happened when we lived in the country, it would not have seemed so creepy. We lived near a game reserve and had farmland all around. They used to come into the back garden.

London residents, out of interest, is it usual to see pheasants hanging from gates? I must admit I've never seen it before. I must live in the wrong postcode. Also, have many of you been the mistaken recipients of such offerings?

Well just because they tend to be tied up in braces. But tbf for a pheasant to accidentally wander into london and get killed is unlucky for two of them to do it begins to look like carelessness.

I haven't but I have been offered some Tesco smoked salmon in a pub.

Pheasants are such stupid animals that it probably managed to hang itself on the gate.

I've had beetroot at my door once.

I've had beetroot at my door once.

Or twice.....

Perhaps some slightly drunk bloke won in in the meat raffle in the pub and did not know what to do with it so hung it on your gate as he staggered past.
It is most likely to be innocent, if admittedly bizarre, and nothing to do with gangs or voodoo...
Shame you binned it - would have been lovely to eat...

Foxes hang animals they have killed long shot but a fox may have put it there for later when I was little they would hang chickens in the trees if they killed a lot of them I know it sounds mad but I saw it for myself and there are so many foxes in london

Wow, all these people getting gifts of pheasants. I have honestly never heard of such a thing. I live in south London, and if I found a dead bird hanging from a bit of string on my gate I would think that some total weirdo had fixated on my house/family, and I'd be shitting it! Who are all these people going and shooting pheasants and bringing them back into London to palm off on random neighbours? What a very strange thing to do.

It was tied up with string. Not Mr or Ms Fox.

Foxes round here only eat cold chicken wings and chips. Feathers? Fuck that.

OP said it was tied with string.
So unless the fox had some string handy then maybe not.

I'd go with the voodoo theory tbh. Only because my Nigerian friend from university who grew up in Hackney, used to have loads of stories about how African "witches" in certain parts of London used to leave little pots with lids around street corners near schools to entice children to open them. Apparently you'd get cursed if you opened them. Her mum knew about them because she'd seen loads of things like this in Nigeria before moving to the UK.

LOVING the idea of pheasant-abandoning gangsters !

Sounds like the sort of thing one might have to contend with in Cheltenham - a better class of criminal gangs dontcha know.... Fairly sure in London any gang would be leaving something slightly more menacing (and easier to obtain in central London) than a pheasant.

Just tucking pluck it and eat it! Voodoo? A prank? It's food!

It's Sunday night at the start of the shooting season! Some poor blighter has had a good weekend and wanted to share the birdy love. Now he/she's been suspected of being a voodoo toting gnagster. I know people don't like blood sports but this is well harsh.

Yes, rather unusual for pheasant, brace or not, to be left outside a London abode. I think it's a misplaced gift. London based Tory goes on a weekend shoot, thinks it will be oh so bloody funny to take a couple of the birds back to the big smoke. Has been drinking most of the weekend and is rather squiffy. Leaves one of said birds on gate of old school chums (but gets wrong house, wrong street etc). No one will ever really know.

But, PMSL at the possibility that the pheasant is a voodoo symbol. If so, you have really pissed someone off.

It's a gift, and will taste lovely, why have you put in a bin?

I once saw a massive crab on top of a bus stop. It was there for a few weeks. Eventually I suppose there was just a shell left and the wind blew it away.

A few weeks later there was a lobster on the next bus stop.

Someone probably abandoned regifted it because they didn't know what to do with it. Or they got the wrong gate.

Strike beater! Oh my goodness, OP are you a teacher? In a non striking union? Are you refusing to go out on strike on Thursday? If the answer is yes, you need to be talking to your Union rep ASAP. This is harassment.

So unless the fox had some string handy then maybe not ROFL

Perhaps its how the conservatives are marking the gates of their voters, if you voted labour it would have been a dead rat.

I think the "won it in a pub raffle" sounds like the likeliest answer, got halfway home and thought "what the f*ck am I going to do with this....I know I'll hang it on this gate"

Because I don't know where it came from, where it's been, if it's been treated or tainted.

I had a terrible shock the first time this happened to me but it turned out to be a present from the landlord. There were two of them.