several males display out of view but in vocal contact with each other) and are visited by groups of females. Males arrive quickly at display sites during the breeding season and seldom leave them until mid afternoon. They feed most actively in the early morning and during the last two hours of daylight. Wild peafowl descend from roost trees within the first 2 hours of dawn, and ascend to their roosts about half an hour after sunset. Chicks forage for themselves with the peahen pointing at food with her bill. Females with young remain separate from flocks, until the young are 4 months old. In wild populations, clutches appear to be deserted when 1-2 young are hatched. Incubation takes 28-30 days and chicks can stay with their mother for more than a year. Females lay in bare scrapes concealed within long grass, and incubate eggs and raise young on their own. Displays end 7-10 days before males moult their train of tail coverts. When disturbed, peafowl typically run downhill and then fly.īreeding season late August to early January. Feral population easily controlled by hunting. Peahens are not attentive mothers, and many chicks are taken by predators. Other large flocks included 17 at Whakapirau, North Kaipara, and 35 at Waipu Caves, Northland. Up to 100 birds were in one field at Orere Point, Firth of Thames in April 2011, and more than 100 near Otane, central Hawke's Bay in June 2016. They congregate in larger flocks during February-August. Peafowl are generally recorded in small mixed-sex groups of less than 10 birds in the pre-breeding season. They are also present in isolated locations in Nelson, Marlborough and Canterbury. The largest feral populations are in wooded lowlands and coastal farmland including the upper Wanganui River catchment, northern Mahia Peninsula and pine forests of the South Head of Kaipara Harbour. Peafowl are held on many lifestyle properties, and have become feral in the upper North Island, especially Northland, Auckland, East Cape and mid Hawkes Bay. Peafowl have been released into the wild many times, mainly through benign neglect of birds kept for display. Clucking calls are used by females with young and when pointing out food. Other distress and warning calls given throughout the year.
#PIKAO NEW ZEALNAD SERIES#
Voice: a series of repeated crowing ka and shrill eow calls of varying frequency given up to 8 times in a row by males, primarily in the breeding season. The rest of the feathers are speckled brown. Females are slightly smaller than males and have a coppery brown head, lighter brown throat and the rest of the neck is dull metallic green. The coverts are held up by the rigid tail feathers in their characteristic display, during which the tail coverts are violently shaken. In mature males, about 140-150 feathers have ‘eyes’ which are deep blue in the centre and have outer layers of metallic lighter blue, gold and metallic green.
The over-developed upper tail coverts have a tan, lilac and purple-brown sheen and are up to 1.4 m long. Males are deep blue on the breast, neck, head and fan crest, and metallic green on the back and rump. Both sexes are generally tame in park situations but can be very wary in feral populations.Ī large crested pheasant. Females move in groups between displaying males.
Males have a characteristic display, raising their extravagantly long ornamental tail coverts, during the breeding season.
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