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?

They were indeed, fruOla. I had a flu jab on Saturday because I'm now in a risk group. [wibble]

Maybe you are being stalked by a posho. There'll be bottles of Port and complementary copies of Horse and Hound next. Jolly good. What.

Oh shit, I guess I am too?

I am STILL 33 years old liar, liar, pants on fire

Kettners isn't a pizza express! It's still Kettners!

I'd love to be your neighbour YellowCanary.

Gilly, I am absolutely delighted to hear that Kettners is still Kettners ..... again.

However, I am very old and worked in the West End for years - sadly, at some point, Kettners did become a Pizza Express for a while www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2008/nov/28/kettners-restaurants-soho-jay-rayner.

I have eaten in there when it was a Pizza Express!

But if it's back to its lovely origins, I will re-visit!

Itsallgoing and cutteduppear I have been involved in countryside management for a long time, and have never, ever, ever, seen or heard of a pheasant shoot run along the lines you describe Ilovemydog's version of events is spot on IMO. There are also a good number of wild bird shoots in the UK (especially Scotland and Wales) where no reared birds are released at all and the wild pheasants are simply encouraged to flourish by habitat creation and some feeding etc. To describe something you clearly know very little about as 'disgusting' is ludicrous.

This thread is making me hungry for roast pheasant

I picked one up that was lying about on the local Earls estate the other week and hung it outside the gamekeepers cottage.
I hope the gamekeeper hasn't moved and the new occupant isn't thinking voodoo

Foxred10 The trouble is it's such a contentious subject, and one on which unfortunately a lot of ignorant people think they are an expert, based on a few archaic stereotypes.

They'd soon be complaining about the state of the countryside and the loss of our indigenous species and being overrun with deer and vermin if the gamekeepers and people like yourself weren't out there looking after everything.

Rant over!

KatieScarlett, are you in a gang?

Maybe they shouldve put a gift tag on it so you couldve thanked them

Someone has left a gift at the wrong house.

When I was living in Japan my friend arrived home to find a huge cuttlefish left on her doorstep. We ended up coating her kitchen in ink trying to work out what to do with it.

It's just the sort of thing my uncle would have done when he was going through London. He would have made a 'quick' detour to see mum, and drop off a pheasant/partridge/whatever, misjudged how long the quick detour took so would have just left it outside. As we hadn't got a gate, he'd have left it pn the doorstep, but if we hadhad a gate he'd have hung it there.

I bet it was a gift from someone you used to know.

I'd have eaten it.

Have almost choked on my cereal several times reading this.

I live in Inner London & have done my whole life other than when working away on my year out (not to be confused with a Gap Yah) & then time at uni. Have never encountered a pheasant either bopping about with its feathery friends or strung up outside someone's house. Either would freak me out a bit, the latter would give me the heebiejeebies more. But I'm vegetarian. And have to pretend in my head I am not feeding my cats Dead Things because I have such a ridiculous level of squeamish about meat. They do get superexpensive not when you bulkbuy it as I do though organic stuff though, no battery-farmed entrails for them. But I digress.

Can understand the OP freaking out, especially at early o'clock. Round here the foxes would've helpfully removed it for you while you were still asleep. They've dragged all sorts into our garden for their nightly rave-ups. Never a pheasant, admittedly, but a whole range of crap. On one occasion actual literal crap, in the shape of a dirty nappy.

Would love to know what Operation Trident would make of a report of Voodoo Gang Pheasants. Suppose it'd make a change for them. Don't think the weekend shooting crowd were who they were targeting with their Carrying A Gun Can Get You Into The Coolest Places ad campaign...

My Inner London Brownies once absolutely flummoxed a fenland-born-and-bred Guider-friend who'd come on Pack Holiday with us by being freaked out by a pheasant checking out the Brownie House we were staying in. Apparently also under the impression pheasants were nefarious gangsters, they were worried about it breaking in. And once Dragon had told them it was a pheasant they almost broke her completely by asking "so what's it FOR?" In a similar vein, a couple of years later I was asked, in all seriousness, during a Brownie Meeting, if cows are an endangered species.

I suspect a lot of adults round here wouldn't know a pheasant if it were hung up on their gate, so at least OP knew what it was... (Not that I'd be hoiking my judgeypants over people not knowing. Pheasants are not exactly a concern in this locale...)

I'm only on my first coffee and I'm a bit ill so forgive my warped mind.

Can you imagine this fred being combined with the giving baby money thread? Maybe some people instead of giving coins to a baby would sneakily hand pheasant from the pram.

I definitely went to kettners a month ago.
End of derail.

I had a boyfriend once who was behind a car that ran over a pheasant. Boyfriend thought 'yum' & popped it in his boot. When he arrived at mine, did big 'come & see what I've got' & opened the boot to find a slightly stunned looking pheasant blinking at us. Said pheasant then legged it out the boot & by a stroke of luck shot into the field next door which was known to be full of pheasants.

So i suppose we helped a pheasant moved house.

It's not the crazy bushy park pheasant is it? Do you love near there?

They'd soon be complaining about the state of the countryside and the loss of our indigenous species and being overrun with deer and vermin if the gamekeepers and people like yourself weren't out there looking after everything

There is a big difference between the necessary culling of various species by trained professionals for management purposes, and people who can't shoot cleanly trying to kill animals for "sport"

Maybe it's a warning from the Organic Food Mafia. Have you paid your Abel + Cole bill recently?

Just to add to the Kettners topic... Not sure what happened a few years ago but Kettners is definitely still there... I walked past it about 10 minutes ago!

Loving the great town and country divide. Actually amazed that people haven't ever seen a pheasant, alive or dead. Found a bracw hanging over my car wing mirror once, which were indeed a gift. Yum.

Loving the great town and country divide. Actually amazed that people haven't ever seen a pheasant, alive or dead. Found a brace hanging over my car wing mirror once, which were indeed a gift. Yum.

Phew- Kettners is still Kettners!
Anyway. re voodoo, I think it is chickens, not pheasants. Only way someone would have a pheasant round your way is from a shoot or a high class butchers. It is like having some Fortnum and Mason Chocs hanging from your gate. Not sinister at all. Agree on drunk person, wrong gate.