Striking Pheasant
Striking Pheasant (#A8FEA1) is a soft green with a pastel character. It reads calm and airy, with enough chroma to feel intentional rather than washed out. Its HSL profile (115°, 98%, 81%) places it in the highly saturated band at a light lightness. Best used in small doses, like logos, CTAs, focus rings, or highlight text, where its saturation becomes a feature rather than noise. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary violet. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
The progressive participle of strike, to hit. Used as a color word since the seventeenth century for hues that command immediate attention. Striking red, striking blue: the implication is saturation combined with visual impact. Sits at the bright-bucket center alongside bold and punchy.
The family Phasianidae — particularly Phasianus colchicus (common pheasant) introduced from China and Persia to European hunting estates. The male's iridescent green-and-bronze head feathers give the color name. Pheasant color refers to a male pheasant's head in breeding plumage: a saturated, slightly muted iridescent deep green.
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.
Wide gamut
The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.
Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.