It could easily win the beauty sweepstakes, blessed as it is with natural beauty, from the top of its crest to the spectacular ‘train’ that is its tail. Its celebrated rain dance is one of the most enduring images of the jungle. I am talking about the Indian peafowl (peacock for male and peahen for female) — our country’s national bird and a popular icon in Indian mythology.
Native to south Asia, the peafowl is the largest bird in the family of pheasants. Males are metallic blue and iridescent green in colour with a fan-shaped crest on their head and elongated tail feathers with beautiful eyespots, spreading upwards during courtship, akin to a fan. The female, with brown plumage and green neck, is not nearly as spectacular. With long necks and long legs, these birds can fly and run fast.
Once as I was walking along the Cauvery river bank in the afternoon, I heard a pair of peacocks calling out, mey-aow… mey-aow as if the call was being carried by the waves reverberating on the other bank. The place was Ramalingeshwar, seldom visited by tourists, with an abundant avian population. It has large stone boulders and small islets with thick vegetation over which the Cauvery flows. At some places, check dams have been built by placing large black boulders across the river. The peafowl families reside here and call repeatedly to show their dominance during dusk and dawn. The banks of the river are covered with tall trees and thick vegetation and the peafowl slowly come down to drink water. The place is ideal for a birding habitat. The peafowl breeds and nests in the vegetation hideouts.
The peafowl in this habitat stays in harmony with a number of bird species like the Eurasian thick knee, lesser whistling tales, black-headed ibis, night herons, spot-billed ducks and other birds in several hundreds. The locals assured us that the birds would be on our side of the bank by evening. Around this time, there was a dance display — a peacock on the tree with its partnering peahen under the tree. The peacock moved clockwise and spread its beautiful wings (the train has roughly 200 feathers) while bestowing on us its shimmering blue-green presence. No doubt the spectacular fan on display was to impress the female. We were witnessing one of the ultimate animal show offs.
Sometimes, bird catchers come in a coracle and steal the eggs amidst the river islets. Some even come with an air gun to hunt them. The peafowl may even get trapped in an animal trap.
We waited there till 5 pm with darkness quickly enveloping us and many birds returning to their roosts.
But for the peafowl, it was a busy time, as they are nocturnal by nature. Restless, they started calling. A male bird came flying from the other bank of the Cauvery with its tall hind feathers stretched and landed on a boulder just in front of us. It was indeed a great experience to see a large and beautiful bird in flight crossing a river and landing so close. After a few minutes, it walked onto the open paddy fields and later to its favourite hideout, the sugar cane fields for night grazing.
Sometimes, while walking around the agricultural canals, the sudden loud call of the peafowl from nearby thickets and eventual fast flight is always a thrilling experience.
Come summer, the river beds become dry and the peafowl has fewer places to hide and is more vulnerable.
The peafowl has many predators. In the wild, tigers, leopards and wild dogs are a threat, with even raptors preying on it.
Conservation
In many of the Indian villages, the peafowl are protected and roam freely.
Habitats suited for the peafowl are calm and isolated islands, often better than any bird sanctuary. The sad part is over utilisation of the space for agricultural purposes with tall trees and vegetation near the river banks being cut for commercial gains. Though the locals live in harmony with the birds, there are a few people who never miss a trick.