Some of God's creation is not exactly very bright.

We have an extended family of pheasants that go about the street and garden.

There are quite a number of them and every time you open the door of the house and they are within sight, instead of just scuttling off into the undergrowth they squawk and hoot like nobody's business and as a result draw more attention to themselves and put themselves in more danger from a nosy and playful dog than they would otherwise.

I thought perhaps it might be simply dodgy genes in this particular pheasant family but the ones down the golf course do exactly the same. On dark mornings when you can't even see them, these more feral pheasants hear footsteps and then blow their cover by making the most awful noise and flying just high enough to be out of any protective cover.

As I say, some of God's creation is not exactly very bright.

And that would be true, too, of the stoat the dog and I followed down the side of a wall the other day. It was lovely to see him running along but I couldn't believe it when he jumped up on top of the wall, took a look at us and then, instead of carrying on over to safety, he decided to let himself back down in front of us.

Not very bright at all.

But forgetting to engage the brain is not a pastime that's confined to the animal and bird kingdoms alone. Human beings can be pretty good at it too. Me included - or should that be especially?

We talk about people opening their mouth and putting their foot in it. I can do that. We're told that only fools rush in. I can do that too.

And I suspect I'm not alone!

We all do daft things and things that are not really for the best but we have a few advantages over pheasants and stoats. We can learn from our mistakes and we can also say "sorry".

If during this week you find yourself making like a pheasant try to learn from the experience. Try not to repeat it.

And if you are a person of faith, ask God to help you as you do that.

I'm off to open the door to Mrs Pheasant and her daughters as Mr Pheasant mounts the garden wall to challenge the neighbour's cat yet again... - Susan Brown.