Fealty

This is Phil.

 

Phil is what my dad Willis once would have referred to as “Chiney Pheasant” –I assume he meant it as short for “Chinese Pheasant.”  I have no idea what type of pheasant Phil is—I’d call him a Shiny Pheasant because he’s very beautiful—and feel vaguely uncomfortable calling him anything other than "Phil". Or Phil the Pheasant. Or My Good Sir, because Phil has the air of one accustomed to Finer Things.

Phil showed up one spring about three years ago, slipping in and out of my hedge row like a spy on a mission. My neighbors and I compared notes, probably assuring ourselves that we *had* actually seen what we’d thought we had seen. Over that first summer we had other random sightings of him, but by September he was gone.

The following spring, Phil showed up outside the neighbor’s hen house and laid claim to the handful of renegade hens that had—quite literally—flown the coop. Hope may spring eternal but such star-crossed love was not meant to be. One by one, the renegade hens were reduced to sorry collection of feathers.

Phil, however, was made of sterner stuff. He not only survived the Things That Go Bump in the Night, but kept up his wistful vigil on the other side of the chicken wire. Perhaps his broken heart did make him more susceptible, late that second summer Phil went missing for a few days and when he returned, one of my neighbors reported that Phil looked as though he might have tangled with an inept predator. (Pretty sure Abby Cat wasn’t to blame so you can stop thinking that. She also wishes to inform you that she is anything but inept.)

Once again, when fall arrived Phil disappeared. I was worried that he wouldn’t survive the winter, but spring brought him back coop-side, fatter and sassier than ever. Having proven himself to be a character in his own right, he deserved a name.
I dubbed him Phil. It fits.