The Dandies of Ranthambore

I was right at the back of a large open top vehicle called a cantor (I have no idea why a large jeep is named after a singer). When we came to a halt I was one of the last people to figure out that there was a large number of peafowl on the road. It had rained overnight, and there were several pools of water in the road. The bunch of birds must have tired of the worms and grass seeds it had been foraging on, and come to drink the water.

Although peafowl are widespread, I’ve never seen people walk past them without stopping. All twenty of us in the cantor were happy watching these pheasants walking around, drinking water, and generally having a relaxed time. This was not the mating season, so there were none of the fabulous displays that one sees from the male when its trying to attract a female.

Off to one side of the road a couple of these dandies were displaying an aloofness that completely disappears in the mating season. I haven’t seen the red in the plumage before. Since the spectacular blue on the neck, and greens and golds on the tail feathers are all tricks of light (being due to diffraction from the microstructure of the feathers) this colour could be just due to the special angle I happened to see it from.

There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly distinctive about peafowl apart from the colours of the male. So why was it chosen to be the national bird of India? Quora has an interesting discussion on this, One day I must read the record of the deliberations of the committee that made this choice.