Indian Peafowl

The Indian peafowl is one of the largest and heaviest pheasants. The peacock has a metallic blue head and neck with a fan-shaped crest, and is best known for his long train, which is made up not of tail feathers but of greatly lengthened upper-tail coverts, each ending in a colourful eyespot. In courtship he raises the train into a fan and makes it shiver. The peahen is mainly brown, with a white face, an iridescent green lower neck and no train. Despite the length of the train, the peacock can still fly (Wikipedia, general species account).

Peafowl live mainly on the ground in open forest and farmland, foraging in small groups for berries and grain and also taking snakes, lizards and small rodents. When disturbed they usually run off through the undergrowth rather than fly. Their loud calls make them easy to detect and are often given when a predator is about in forest areas. Why the peacock's train evolved has been argued over since Darwin, who explained it by sexual selection, and the debate continues (Wikipedia, general species account).

The Indian peafowl has been the national bird of India since 1963. It is one of the few Indian birds that is clearly doing well: the State of India's Birds 2023 estimates that its numbers have increased by about 150% since before 2000 and are still rising by nearly 8% a year, and its range, about 1.7 million km², is very large. It rates the peafowl a Low conservation priority (SoIB 2023). Its eBird-based range coverage also rose steeply between the pre-2000 period and 2022 (SoIB 2023).