Western Tragopan

The western tragopan is a medium-sized, brightly plumed pheasant of the western Himalaya, from north-eastern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan to Uttarakhand in India. The male is very dark, grey and black with numerous white spots, each bordered with black, and deep crimson patches on the sides and back of the neck. The throat is bare with blue skin, the facial skin is red, and there is a small black crest. Males weigh 1.8–2.2 kg and are 55–60 cm long; females weigh 1.25–1.4 kg and are 48–50 cm (Wikipedia, general species account).

It lives at about 1,750 to 3,600 m, going higher in summer. It is mostly arboreal but feeds on the ground, taking mostly leaves, shoots and seeds and also insects and other invertebrates, and like most pheasants roosts in trees singly or in pairs except when nesting. In display it gives a loud two-note ringing call, wou-weee, repeated every second for long periods. The breeding season is May and June. SoIB 2023 treats it as a western Himalayan endemic, rates it a High conservation priority, and gives a Very Restricted range of about 5,400 km² (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).