Cheer Pheasant

The cheer pheasant is the only member of its genus, named for the Danish botanist Nathaniel Wallich. Unlike most pheasants it favours subdued colours, with buffy grey plumage and long grey crests. The long tail has 18 feathers, the central ones much longer, coloured mainly grey and brown. It is distributed in the highlands and scrub of the Himalaya in India, Nepal and Pakistan (Wikipedia, general species account).

In India it is found in Uttarakhand (Kumaon and Garhwal), Himachal Pradesh (Shimla, Kullu and Chamba) and Jammu and Kashmir, as well as in western Nepal and northern Pakistan. It breeds on steep cliffs in summer with a clutch of 10–11 eggs. Surveys in 1981 and 2003 at Dhorpatan in Nepal established 70 calling sites, suggesting about 200 birds there, and a 2010 survey detected it at 21 calling sites in Kullu district. SoIB 2023 rates it a High conservation priority, treats it as a western Himalayan endemic, and gives a Restricted range (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).