The Dragon Bird { Green Peafowls

[FrankYLegend]

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That's great news!

All I knew was that this bird came from a local ecological farm. The last I saw of this bird was 2008; it wasn't there when I visited in 2010. The thing that struck me most was the coppery red of the terminal edge. I didn't really think it would be Tonkin Imperator (though the crest is quite short). The back is a bit blue like annamensis though and the primaries are really dark rufous.

These pictures were taken by me at Taipei Zoo in 2008. The male is under moulting.

There is another pair (or more?) in Hsinchu Zoo in Hsinchu. The female is epistatic and much of the male's crest plumes have fallen off. I did NOT take these photographs so I can't speak from them first-hand.

There's another bird with no crest I think

I don't understand why the male's crest plumes have fallen off and haven't grown back... Poor health?

 

[FrankYLegend]

post deleted

 

[FrankYLegend]

strange, I posted pictures and the forums crashed?

 

[Resolution]

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There are so many people on the BackYardChickens Form it crashed.
Can you please explain your photos better? The really ratting looking male is Javanese no? The rest of the birds- look like Tonkin imperator and not seeing all of her so this is only identifying from the pale irides,-she could be Western or Southern Javanese as well. I'll need more information.

The last bird photographed is Tonkin imperator annamensis composite- but the one hen in the centre- that's not the same as the epistatic hen is it? She looks awfully Javanese to me- so emerald green and dull gold

Aw I see more photos now- she's Javanese crossed with annamensis and the reason he has no crest is because she's eating them off his head.

You know what- I need you to go back and caption each photo- there's no reason that the hen wouldn't be the same genotype as the male in her enclosure- they may even be siblings.
It's just uncanny- as soon as annamensis is crossed into anything the cross looks Javanese. I look at other photos of her and she looks like a typical Tonkin imperator- but the light irides...

 

[FrankYLegend]

Quote:
There are so many people on the BackYardChickens Form it crashed.
Can you please explain your photos better? The really ratting looking male is Javanese no? The rest of the birds- look like Tonkin imperator and not seeing all of her so this is only identifying from the pale irides,-she could be Western or Southern Javanese as well. I'll need more information.

The last bird photographed is Tonkin imperator

The "really ratting looking male" is the same bird as this one:

Here's some footage the zoo uploaded on YouTube.

So it appears the bird isn't in that cage anymore. I visited the zoo at around this time but the aviary was under renovation.

I'm not sure about Hsinchu (the epistatic female and crestless male) because I haven't been there. The first picture of the pair is rather old (both birds appear really chubby) and the others were taken later by a user on Flickr.

 

[Resolution]

That's not the same bird Franky. Note the black dent coming down from the occiput crossing the malar war paint nearest the ear? This is not the same bird. This ratty male is Javanese. The original photos are of a coastal imperator with potentially some annamensis in its genetics.

 

[FrankYLegend]

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It is the same bird, perhaps the colours are wrong. I think it's because I overdid the colours of that picture. The bill is broken due to fighting with Green Peafowl, as well note the bird has no spur on its right leg in both the 2008 and 2007 pictures; instead there's a ring around that area.. I was in contact with Bird Curator Mr. Wang Jin Yuan for a while and he confirmed Taipei Zoo only has one Green Peafowl, so it has to be the same bird. They tried to fix the bill a bit and put him in a cage because of that. Even in that cage he wanted to fight with the Indian Peafowls. When I took the pictures of the bird in the cage (in summer of 2007 and 2008), he was already in a moult.

Here's the original unedited photograph (taken in January 2007) before the bird was caged.

I did notice that in the 2008 photo on the left side feathers are growing over the war paint a bit.
Back in early 2007, this was not the case:

 

[clinton9]

Hi Resolution,
Questions:
2 races of IB peafowls ???
3 races of IB peafowls ???

I am not sure how many races of wild IB peafowls.

Clinton.

 

[FrenchToast]

wow, Beautiful birds !!!

 

[Resolution]

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Scepter feathers (c) are the longest quills in the train. They end with a shape like Y .
Sickle coverts (a) are the outermost quills in the train. They are in the shape of asickle.

As we all know, the train of the Pavo peafowl is comprised of upper tail coverts .

Javanese female peafowl, note train of upper tail coverts obscuring the true tail.
Both sexes carry a train of upper tail coverts but the male moults his once a year, revealing his true tail, which is quite long and structurally complex as it is not only acts as a third wing in flight, it also acts as the tonal anchor of its quill music- when the bird erects and spreads out its true tail feathers it also vibrates them with a singular intensity. Both sexes perform this highly ritualised demonstration (intention) display when confronted by certain threats, a cobra or python for example. They will also- and this particularly true of males of the Indian and both sexes of Green Peafowl- the spreading and vibrating of retrices and upper tail coverts ( and don't forget- females, juvenile males and subadults also carry trains- they may not be as large or astonishing but they are very much present and vital for the bird's survival)- they will also put on demonstration displays where each bird acts out how well it can intimidate- and joy of joys if a squirrel, starling, rabbit or half-napping cat will oblige the attention. It's not a courtship display it's an intention display- a demonstration of intent- the intention of anti-nest predation- the intention of defense of offspring and mate, the intention- with all its stamina and fearless determination to defend the flock against typical threats- the threats that junglefowl and francolins can simply never intimidate or dissuade attention from ( think three foot python, four foot monitor lizard, one foot mongoose, a chick thieving bittern and so on).

Put the peacock back into the context of its natural environment and you begin to gain a better appreciation for the scale/proportions of serious threat and just why it is that in Asiatic countries the peacock was formerly known as the dragon of birds or dragon bird; snake killer or snake dancer. Westerners invented the supposed vanity of the peacock and Darwin took it a step further asserting that the peacock's train has no practical purpose, save for "attracting a mate".
The quill music is generated by movements of the specialised retrices which vibrate rapidly against one another and more obviously with the countless rigid bases of the train of upper tail coverts. The plumes of the train are highly specialised. These familiar quills are designed to work in concert to send out a vibratory signature that speaks unambiguously to a largely reptilian class of reptilian intruders into the peafowl's territories that pose a serious threat to the nest, to chicks and in the case of the monitor lizard- they may even compete over foraging larders- for example, a termite infested deadfall- .

-unless the family unit of peafowl want to attract my pet ferret Wizzle to mate with him, Darwin's theory doesn't hold water.

Quill music and foot stomping are how the peafowl let the reptile ( which can neither hear no see with the same senses as warm-blooded creatures) that the peafowl is not appropriate food and that it is potentially dangerous. The peafowl is not bluffing. A great deal of this ritualised display conceals vulnerable regions of the bird, in anticipation of the inevitable strike of an angry reptile put on defense. The peafowl intentionally instigates the reptile to strike- and repeatedly- so that it can use its most powerful weapons. The peafowl uses its legs to flog -a double set of hard, slender clubs, armed with powerful kicking thorns- the equivalent of fangs in the shape of thorns- and there are the clawed feet themselves- the wings and pecking beak are involved as well- but essentially, the train is a matador's cape designed for the peacock to engage in close combat with the python and the varanid and the civet cat...

That was a long digression. The scepter plumes are not only the longest quills in the train, they are also the most structurally sound. They are the strongest plumes in the train and are most useful during a specific sort of nest defense stratagem- the scepter plumes deserve a thread of their own.
The sickle feathers have a very special role in anti-predation and nest defense as well as intention display aka "showing off" as well. These plumes obscure the wings and further confuse the target that is being threatened.

The rump- is of course where the physical back of the bird ends and the half foot span of those first few exquisite rows of upper tail coverts begins. Here is where the smallest little "eye spots" are situated. I learned in India and amongst Javanese Hindus in Java that each region of the peacock's train - all moulted naturally- each plume belongs to one of a number of topographic regions associated with the iconography of the deity Vishnu . I won't go into full convoluted metaphysics of the firmament of Vishnu at this point in time- suffice to say- there is a scepter- a sickle, a mace, conch, penumbrae and umbrae. Penumbrae is the term for tiny eyes in the train. Umbra for the larger ones.
Mace plumes are those feathers that lack an ocelli, which bridge scepter plumes from umbrae plumes. The conch plumes are those sickles with eyes- the longer sickles with just a vestige of an ocelli are referred to as serpents. Before you gasp in exasperation know that I'm not creative enough to make this terminology/vernacular up on my own. This is how the most sacred bird of Hinduism is broken down into parts- and these parts when moulted were highly symbolic for the adherents of this ancient faith.

I'm relating them as a guide to discussion. I don't expect anyone but a natural history illustrator to adopt the lingo as it's really only helpful in the shared description of what would otherwise be very challenging.




Hmm. Franky- Very interesting. This bird has stumped me for so many years. Supposedly they came from somewhere in the Tonkin port- but I think it's a composite of Javanese, annamese and Tonkin imperator. He looks like two completely different birds in these different photos and that's the problem when people start (inadvertently or purposefully) crossing distinct forms together> They can't be put back together- imagine the genetic matrix this creates. It could also be the case that this bird is a pure bred wild bird from someplace I've never come across. I hope that is the case rather than him being a composite, but I rather doubt it...