On a beautiful sunny morning in early summer, with dew still glistening on the leaves and the air filled with the scent of damp earth, we went into the woods with our little ones. The little ones were so keen to show us just how well their tyres gripped the rock faces and what seemingly insurmountable obstacles they could conquer.
Whilst we were encouraging the little rascals to perform ever more daring manoeuvres, we spotted a strange creature on one of the slopes. Up until that point, we’d only known of this creature from stories our parents had told us in our earliest childhood, and we’d always thought, with a broad grin on our faces, ‘You probably think I still believe in Father Christmas’. But there it was, running ahead of us: the Hanghuhn. Completely fascinated, we watched the bizarre spectacle and didn’t notice that one of our vehicles was heading straight for the Hanghuhn. Probably completely bewildered by the strange noise behind it, the Hanghuhn turned round and, due to its far too short legs, lost its balance and tumbled sideways down the slope into the depths.
We immediately scrambled down the slope to take a closer look at this strange creature and offer help if necessary. The poor animal lay somewhat distraught by a small fir tree, its feathers quivering, and looked at us fearfully. It had unfortunately become entangled in some branches and was unable to free itself. Whilst one of us distracted it from the front, another freed its leg. The rock partridge immediately took flight, but its anatomy meant it kept tumbling back to the ground. One of us, a truly experienced outdoorsman, grabbed the completely distraught rock partridge and carried it back to the slope from which we’d caused it to fall.
Back in its natural habitat, the rock partridge immediately ran across the slope without looking back even once. Well, it would probably have tumbled down again anyway. We drove around with our lads for quite a while longer, chatting about this strange creature.
Even now, whenever we drive through that area, we see this partridge doing a few brisk laps around the slope, greeting us and clucking cheerfully. We decided that this might be the last surviving specimen of the partridges and that it should be protected. And so our strange little community came into being...
One of the group even suggested that the Latin name was ‘gallus gallus conatus’, but was that all just a hunter’s tall tale?
But actually, it doesn’t really matter, as long as you keep a little imagination alive.