Indian peafowl

Overview

You'll see peafowl on every drive in Yala, and you'll hear them before you see them.

The male, the peacock, carries the famous train of long, eye-spotted feathers. It isn't his tail: it grows from his back, over the real tail. During courtship he raises it into a shimmering fan and rattles it to impress the females, the peahens, which are smaller and brown.

Peafowl spend the day feeding on the ground and fly up into tall trees to roost at night. They're sharp-eyed and nervous, and their loud, honking alarm call is one of the sounds our trackers listen for most closely, because it often means a leopard is on the move.

How to spot one.

1. Listen at dawn and dusk

   Peafowl are loudest early and late in the day. Their call carries a long way across the scrub.

2. Follow the alarm

   A sudden burst of alarm calls, with birds flying up into trees, is a classic sign that a leopard is nearby.

3. Look for displays

   Males display in open clearings. Your tracker will stop if one is fanning its train near the road.

4. Check the treetops at sunset

   Peafowl fly up to roost in tall trees in the evening, often in noisy groups.

At a glance.

Active

By day, roosting in trees at night

Social life

Small groups; males display to attract females

Nest

A shallow scrape on the ground

The train

Grows from the back, over the real tail

Range

Common across Sri Lanka's dry zone

Spot it by

Blue neck, crest, eye-spotted train

The best months.

Peafowl are resident all year and easy to see on any drive. Males carry their full trains for much of the year and shed them after the breeding season.

Three things to remember.

How we watch them.

• We stop for displays but don't drive closer to flush birds into flight.
• No playing calls or noises to attract them.
• We give nesting hens on the ground plenty of space.
• Engines off near roosting trees at dusk.