PHEASANTS really do live up to the status of bird brain. When it comes to nous they are not the brightest light bulb in the ornithological pack. We are now entering the annual season of pheasant carnage on the back road between Hazlemere and Beaconsfield.

Sad heaps of bloodied copper bronze-feathered ex-pheasants lie like scattered leaves along the road they have clearly failed to negotiate. It’s not exactly the busiest thoroughfare in the Wycombe area but somehow these hapless birds pick exactly the wrong moment to try and cross it.

It is clearly one of nature’s great mysteries as to why they decide to stroll or dart across the road when they are blessed with wings. Maybe it’s a game of pheasant chicken, but it’s more likely that somewhere down the road – so to speak – there was a seriously bad role model in the pheasant family.

Much like the human desire to fly (when we don’t possess wings) there was a Phasianus colchicus that decided it was the height of coolness to walk everywhere. Now his successors are reaping a whirlwind for such folly.

This season is now with us for a few weeks and no doubt local residents will be dining in style while it lasts and that brings us to a strange piece of motoring etiquette. If you happen to bump off a pheasant in your car you are not allowed to benefit from the consequences.

The roadkill goes to the next driver. It is not enshrined in criminal law of course, but it is one of those ethereal moral codes that you breach at your peril. Nick your own roadkill and you will be ostracised.

I was once driving across Cannock Chase in Staffordshire and came to a halt behind a queue of four cars. The first one had hit a deer – resulting in serious damage to the car and terminal damage to the deer.

A pick-up driver travelling behind made sure the motorist at the centre of this drama was ok and then quickly said: “Mine I think”, at which point he and his mate lobbed the deer into the back of their truck and took off.

The thing is this though: from where did this rule first emerge? As far as I can understand, technically any roadkill is owned by the Highways Agency, but they’re not about to follow that up given that there is – at a conservative estimate – ten million animals killed each year on our roads.

However the origin of the rule itself is shrouded in absolute mystery and is one of those weird and whacky English customs that we tend to follow but haven’t a clue as to why.

That said, I have to confess that scraping a pheasant off the road for my dinner plate isn’t anywhere near the top of my culinary delights.

If the mess doesn’t put you off then the advice from Food Standards Agency surely would. Their warning is that it can be dangerous eating roadkill as the animal could contain bugs, parasites or toxins that still may not die when it has been cooked. However a number of roadkill eating country folk still live healthy lives to prove otherwise.

My father once arrived at my house for Christmas, presented me with a brace of pheasants and said: “Here you are son, they’ll make us a fine meal.”

They didn’t. It all went very wrong for me at the plucking stage with feathers stuck to my hands, the sink, the draining board and even the walls – and all with bits of meat attached to them. Clearly plucking pheasants is a skill that escapes me.

However if you’re not fussed where your pheasant comes from just take a trip around the lanes by Penn Woods and you should fill up the freezer nicely. Pheasants may be game birds – but it’s one they’re losing at the moment.