PICK OF THE PHEASANTS

When the question “What have the Romans ever done for us?” is asked, every Monty Python fan will know that the answer is “Sanitation, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system and public health”. But they also brought the pheasant to Britain. Probably. Almost certainly. Like the rabbit. The Romans did like their food, after all.

Whatever the truth of their introduction into the UK, we do know that they originally came from Asia and that they have been here for around 2,000 years. Nonnative species generally receive a bad press, and often rightly so: grey squirrels, mink, signal crayfish, Japanese knotweed – there is not a lot to be said for these.

But Britain, in my opinion, would be a poorer place without rabbits, little owls, rainbow trout, grass snakes and, on slightly controversial ground here, the domestic cat. For most people in Britain, the pheasant is as much part of the countryside