In an extraordinary tale of survival that seems more like fiction than reality, a pheasant cheated death by spending an entire day trapped within the radiator grill of a car travelling through the picturesque Cotswolds.
The Unlikely Stowaway's Discovery
The drama began when the car's owner spotted the game bird on the road and slammed on her brakes. Assuming she had become another unfortunate statistic in the region's frequent wildlife collisions, the unnamed driver stepped out expecting to find a casualty. To her surprise, there was no sign of the pheasant on the road, leading her to believe it had flown away to safety.
It wasn't until hours later that a colleague noticed the extraordinary truth: the pheasant had become an unwitting stowaway, firmly wedged within the front grill of the silver Ford. The bird had been trapped for approximately 24 hours, exposed to the elements and high-speed travel, yet remarkably showed no outward signs of distress beyond hissing when approached.
The Delicate Garage Rescue Operation
After unsuccessful attempts to free the bird herself, the driver took her vehicle to a local garage in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, where staff were astonished by their unusual passenger. Lucy McDonagh, 44, documented the rescue as her husband James Collett, 59, who owns the garage, carefully worked to liberate the trapped creature.
Mechanics spent about 15 minutes dismantling the car's undertray to reach the pheasant, using the MOT ramp to carefully access the engine compartment. Against all odds, the bird emerged completely unscathed from its ordeal. "Somehow, it was absolutely fine - not a feather out of place!" Ms McDonagh remarked.
In a gesture of goodwill from a business with deep community roots, the garage, trading for 104 years in the same village, made no charge for the rescue operation for their regular customer.
A Happy Ending and Wider Wildlife Concerns
The pheasant's adventure concluded when the customer transported it in a box to be released near Jeremy Clarkson's Hawkstone Brewery on the outskirts of the scenic village, giving the bird a second chance at life.
This incident highlights a broader issue of wildlife-vehicle interactions in rural Britain. The rescue comes just days after a young fox was saved from an Amazon delivery van in Derby, where the distressed animal had chewed through wires in the engine bay, triggering a warning light.
The RSPCA assisted the fox, which suffered minor injuries including a burn on her back leg, pressure sores, and bruising before being taken to Leicestershire Wildlife Hospital where she continues her recovery.
Tragically, not all wildlife encounters end so fortunately. In November 2018, another pheasant in Bourton-on-the-Water died after flying through a lorry windscreen and landing on the driver's lap. According to research on Phys.org, the peak time for pheasant roadkill spans from autumn to late winter, coinciding with captive-bred bird releases and the end of supplementary feeding after shooting season.
