Green Peafowl

The green peafowl is a very large pheasant with scaled metallic-green neck plumage and a tall upright crest. Males reach roughly 180–250 cm including the elongated train, which carries many eye-spots; females lack the train but share the green neck and differ less dramatically from males than female Indian peafowl do. Both sexes have long legs and a loud, far-carrying call, useful for locating wary birds in open forest (Wikipedia, general species account).

Vietnamese fieldwork found the strongest use of dry deciduous forest with permanent water and little human disturbance. In Dak Lak, forest within two kilometres of water and more than two kilometres from settlement formed only 3% of the province but was predicted to hold 37% of its green peafowl. Later surveys recorded a sharp decline at Yok Don but higher density at Cat Tien; abundance fell near cattle and where ground vegetation was absent (Brickle et al. 2002; Sukumal et al. 2015).