Furtive pheasantry

This is from the podiatrist's car park in Inverness, where I sat in the car and read my book while Mrs Oons was in the smithy, having her hooves trimmed. Lost in John Le Carré World, I failed to see a phalanx of foraging female pheasants arriving till they were within a couple of feet.

It's a camouflage thing, for as ground nesting birds they need to sit on their nest, invisible. There is also stealth of movement. Feet may go up and down, but head doesn't because that would draw attention. And they covered fully fifty feet before I noticed the movement right next to me.

After that many, many errands were run, but that would bore you.

[Editor's note. I know. strictly speaking a phalanx is a rectangular mass of soldiers six, seven, even eight ranks deep: depending on whether you're Roman, Sumerian or whatever. Shields are involved, and sharp pointy sticks. But phalanxiform pheasants feel nicely alliterative. In this case there were actually one, two, free of them.]

[Editor's another note. Phalanxiform is not a word. I made it up. But that's how language evolves, innit? Etymologically it's a hybrid noun used in an adjectival context.]

[Smugface]