Three pheasants have been spotted in Northbrook Park in Lewisham.
The park’s three new feathered friends are one female and two male pheasants, which have been seen in the wildlife area of Northbrook Park in Baring Road, Lee.
These long-tailed game birds are usually spotted in the open countryside close to copses, woodland edges and hedgerows.
Visitors to the park first saw them on Sunday December 11th.
Michelle Ball, a representative of the Friends of Northbrook Park, said: “I was really surprised to see them and couldn’t believe it at first as you don’t expect to see them in such an urban area. They’ve been in the park’s wildlife and forest area every day since, staying close to the hedges and are still quite shy, but it would be amazing if they could stay and make this their home.”
The park has undergone a transformation over the last two years thanks to the fundraising of Ryan Wells, Ms Ball’s 11-year-old son. He has helped to raise over £250,000 for new play equipment for the park and also to create a new wildlife and forest area for children to use. The Friends group has just been given £2,145 from the educational charity the Ernest Cook Trust to fit two interactive solar-powered sound posts and a solar-powered birdbath fountain in the new wildlife section.
Ms Ball said: “These additions will be more fantastic features for the area that has so far been created entirely from donations from generous companies. We are slowly attracting more and more wildlife to the area, including about 100 green parakeets and some woodpeckers, which have been seen recently. It is great the children are seeing animals and birds you’d normally only see in the countryside.”
Tim Webb, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said: “I’m not sure why they should have chosen to visit Lewisham. But pheasants can fly quite a distance, so unless they’ve escaped from a large garden or nearby aviary, they could well have flown in from the wilds of Kent or Essex.”