Top Gear Hammond shoots the wrong bird
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If Hammond is a 'keen pheasant shot' he must have shot the peacock on purpose. They aren't at all similar in appearance and peacocks are two or three times bigger than cock pheasants.
Just TG-style fooling around and a bit distasteful really. Tchah!
Footnote: my increasingly illiterate comic, which routinely misspells common words, outdid itself by referring to shooting as 'hunting' two or three times in the piece. TCHAH!!!
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The sub-headline was a bit careless!
"Top Gear presenter 'hugely apologetic' for shooting dead friend's peacock"
Damn noisy things. There are half a dozen in the next village, driving the residents mad it seems, damaging cars and squawking noisily. Nobody has admitted to being the owner. They should send for Hammond.
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Hmm I thought that as well not really the same. And I doubt it was flying either, I believe that many of them have their wings clipped so they can't fly off the estate. We all make make mistakes though.
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They do move, on the ground, in a similar way, sort of slinking through the undergrowth.
You'd have thought a peacock would be pretty noticeable by its colour apart from size - if it really was a cock and not a peahen.
But he had no business to be shooting them low or on the ground anyway. Pheasants have a very rapid steep ascent when they choose to take off, and are very fast. That's supposed to be the point of the sport - it's difficult.
Peacocks are strong fliers but they need more run - not vertical take-off like a pheasant. Also they don't usually just take off into open sky - they fly up into trees or onto walls.
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The only fowl I've shot by mistake was a woodcock. A friend though, who has quite grand connections, disgraced himself when about 14 by shooting a barn owl with a .410 while out shooting with his very grand grandfather and uncle. He thought it was 'a mystery bird' but got scolded for his pains and wasn't taken next time.
Trying to sleep last night, instead of the usual dull pop songs coursing through my brain I was reciting The Owl and the Pussycat over and over to myself. Edward Lear was brilliant in a weird way and that is a strangely beautiful and dream-like poem. Known it all my life almost.
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>> disgraced himself when about 14 by shooting a barn owl with a
>> .410 while out shooting
I remember my uncle shooting a tawny owl by mistake. He was a very good shot, and like your friend went on some quite grand shoots. I think it was while rough shooting along a stretch of wooded abandoned railway line, not a proper driven shoot with beaters etc.
I remember as children we were very upset about it, but it was an honest spur of the moment mistake, and not by some trigger-happy newcomer by any means.
Funny that we didn't give a thought for the pheasants and pigeons, also God's creatures of course, but even when young we seemed to know that they were fair game.
Odd, I'd completely forgotten the incident until your post AC.
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Peasant shoots Peacock thinking it was a Pheasant - Armel Coussine
