23 October 2025

All right, I know pheasants only have a brain the size of a pea, but we saw what we saw and what we saw was amazing!
On one of our recent ‘Tuesday walks’ , this time on a Friday because our week had been very full, we were walking past a field of sheep; noticing some pheasants chatting away in a corner we suddenly realised that one pheasant had left the rest and was walking across behind the sheep squawking in a way that we have never heard before and that resembled the “Yap” of a small dog. Then we realised that he was, quite deliberately, driving the sheep! As we watched him, still 'yapping' he gently moved the whole lot up the field and over the hill !
We wondered what on earth he thought he was doing – getting them away from  the birds’ food source, sending the ‘noisy neighbours’ further away or just simply enjoying the power to control a flock of much larger animals? Or maybe just having a joke on the sheep!?
Whatever he thought he was doing we got great fun out of watching him do it.
Animals often, I think, have a much greater capacity for thinking and doing things that aren’t just instinctive ‘eat, sleep and procreate’ based: maybe a lesson to us all to give credit where credit is due and to stop thinking that only the higher apes (us)  can think, have fun and use imagination!
When I told someone this story they asked me what 'moral' I could draw from it in my letter; the answer is that there isn't one! unless you count inviting you to join me in awe and wonder - and laughter! - as we look at the beautiful and fascinating world God has given us?

With love,
Jacquie xx