Himalayan Snowcock

The Himalayan snowcock is a large, grey, partridge-like bird 55–74 cm long and weighing 2–3.1 kg. The upperparts are grey, with rump and wing feathers bordered with rufous, and the upper breast is grey with dark crescent bars. The head pattern looks like that of the smaller chukar. About five subspecies have been named, differing in colouring. It overlaps in parts of its wide range with the slightly smaller Tibetan snowcock (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives across the Himalayan ranges and parts of the adjoining Pamirs, on alpine pastures and steep rocky cliffs, from which it dives down the slopes to escape. Birds are gregarious when not breeding, in small groups, and several groups may share the same hill. They feed on grass, shoots, berries and seeds. In India breeding is in summer, April to June, with five to twelve stony olive or brown eggs spotted red or brown, incubated by the female alone. The song is a loud three-part whistle. SoIB 2023 rates it a Moderate conservation priority, with a Moderate range and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).