Aussie Finch Forum

Following on from Henry's question about Himalayan Monals and Tintola's great photo, I was wondering if we should post photos and comments of other pheasant breeds which are no longer/ever in Australia which many people may not be familiar with?
Some of the tragopans, firebacks etc are spectacular but there are lots of fabulous species which we don't have here.
Anyone willing to start?

OK Not a pheasant, but close, The Malaysian Crested Partridge or Roul Roul. They have been in Australia but as far as we can tell there is only one male left in Aus at the moment. Pity!

Beautiful Tintola.

Pity about their situation here in Australia. Wish we had a few more to get them going. They would be a great aviary bird to have.

They seem easy enough to breed overseas. Many are kept on raised floors which suggests parasite/bacterial problems like many quail get. Not exactly my idea of keeping these guys but whatever works for you I guess.

This prompted an enjoyable browse of the literature.
Here's an image of one of my favourites so far:
I don't know if anyone keeps them.
They are a southern Phillipines endemic.

[PS: Photo is from Wikipedia, on Creative Commons license.

December 11, 2007 Llimchiu I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license versions 3.0, 2.5, 2.0, and 1.0. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Palawan_peacock.jpg]

In 1996 I tried in vain to save the last elderly pair of Edwards pheasants in the country with artificial insemination. I could collect semen but could not get the hen to lay a decent egg. They died of old age with the year.
from Wikipedia

Both types pictured to date are beautiful. Would love to be able to see some of them strolling round the high school oval or golf course, or wherever.
LML

These guys interest me, not that i think i will ever have the space for them.

Can anyone share any photo's of their birds and pheasant setup?

Nice one Matty.

I don't believe there are any here in Australia but I know they are kept privately in the US and in zoos in US & Europe at least.

I had a stack of nice photos but they are either still on slides or were lost when my previous laptop was stolen

According to the Australian Poultry Forum the only pheasants available in Australia are:
Golden
Dark Throat
Kalij - Black
Kalij - Lineated
Kalij - Nepal
Lady Amherst's
Reeves
Ringneck - Blackneck
Ringneck - Blue Mutant
Ringneck - Chinese
Ringneck - Chocolate
Ringneck - Cinnamon
Ringneck - Formosan
Ringneck - Green Mutant
Ringneck - Korean
Ringneck - Mongolian
Ringneck - Platinum
Ringneck - White
Siamese Fireback
Silver
Swinhoe

There are a few picks of these on the World Pheasant Association's Australian Chapter site.

You can scratch Black Kalij off that list - hasn't been a good one around in 15 years, just bad Nepal's.