On a warm evening on the second day of July <br />As I walked through the high grass upwards a bird did fly <br />A bantam sized mottled brown bird with low and short quick flight <br />Beyond the hedge she disappeared from sight. <br /> <br />There at my feet amongst the high grass as I looked down <br />In her simple nest her ten eggs of greeny brown <br />I dared not touch them on them only gazed <br />At such a thing of Natural beauty quite amazed. <br /> <br />By chance alone the hen pheasant's nest I'd found <br />Since I had walked the fields for miles around <br />And only once see a pheasant with her young they flew away <br />And amongst the high grass hidden they did stay. <br /> <br />A school friend of mine once raised pheasants in an outdoor cage <br />And he sold them to a gun club at their adult stage <br />The gun club in late September set them free <br />At the time of wild pheasants a scarcity. <br /> <br />I still recall that evening in July <br />The mottled pheasant from her nest did fly <br />And I was eight and of Nature little did know <br />And that was more than fifty years ago.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-pheasant-s-nest/
