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GREENSBORO - “Goldy” flew away from home last week, leaving his adopted family to worry.

The Harrises have put up posters and followed every sighting around the Cornwallis Drive area off Benjamin Parkway for “Goldy,” a rare Reeves’s pheasant that had wandered into their neighborhood as a chick last spring.

“He’s always been real friendly,” said Vada Harris, 50, whose family allowed the bird to settle in their wooded backyard on Fernwood Drive in Guilford Hills. “He lets children throw sunflower seeds to him.”

But then someone called Animal Control on Oct. 23, setting off a chain of events that led to Goldy’s frantic flight to freedom.

The Harrises rescued Goldy from the shelter and put him in a hastily constructed pen in their backyard. Goldy, accustomed to roaming in the woods and roosting in trees, didn’t like being confined. Heavy rain last week that weakened the temporary pen offered him a chance to escape.

He’s been running ever since.

The Harrises put up fliers across Guilford Hills. They’ve gotten several calls on Goldy sightings and hurried out each time to no avail. He’d already fled.

On Saturday, Goldy visited the Pender Lane area of Guilford Hills.

“I was just standing there on the steps,” said Ed Hayes, 64. “He just came right up to me.”

Animal Control officers tried to catch Goldy, but he flew in to an oak in Bill Johnson’s backyard.

“As far as I’m concerned, it can go free,” said Johnson, 83. “It doesn’t bother me. I just wanted to know what it was.”

Well, Goldy is a Reeves’s pheasant, a bird from central and east China. Some reports indicate the species is vulnerable to extinction, with only a few thousand left in the wild because of deforestation and hunting.

How he got to Guilford Hills is anyone’s guess.

The Harrises believe a neighbor must have collected rare birds and let him go when they moved.

So, Goldy took up roost in the Harrises’ backyard. They’d like to get him back home, where they plan to build a bigger, better shelter.

“I’ve been real worried about him,” Vada Harris said. “He seems to like people a whole lot. But right now, he’s just traumatized.”
 

Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jennifer.fernandez@news-record.com