A quick fun fact: this bird is also thought of as a national symbol for Taiwan, because the male bird has feathers that are the same colors as the Taiwan flag!
My friend and I were very surprised to see it! I had never heard of or seen this bird before. While we were walking on the trail, I saw the bird for the first time from far away, on a cliff above me. It ran away very fast before I could see it clearly or take a picture. From far away, I thought it was a peacock and hoped I would see another one.
Later on, while we were starting to walk back from the end of our hike, I saw the pheasant walking on the trail, about 50 feet in front of me. My friend and I stopped and were very quiet. I pulled out my phone and took a quick picture of it before it could run away. We then slowly started to walk towards it. As soon as it saw us, it stopped moving. One more step, and then it ran up the cliff and disappeared into the trees.
It was such a cool experience! We felt like we had truly seen something special! We both didn't know what the creature was, because even though it looked like a peacock or turkey, we had never seen one like this before. It was not until later, after the hike, that I tried to research what kind of bird it was. It took a long time, but I finally found it online and matched the picture to the one I took on the trail.
