Both sexes may also run along the ground with the tail held at a forty five degree angle to reduce wear on the tail feather tips. Both sexes give loud, croaking alarm notes or clucking sounds like barnyard chickens. The pheasant's lifespan in the wild is relatively short. Many young hatched in the spring do not live past October. In general, males live about ten months.
Females live an average of about twenty months.
The maximum age in the wild is eight years. First introduced for hunting, the flashy ring-neck is one of the most widely distributed and popular game bird amongst sportsmen. In one study in 1937, two males and six female pheasants were released on a four hundred and fifty-acre island off of the coast of Washington State. With few predators and an abundance of food resources, the population reached nearly two thousand birds within six years.