Meet Himalayan Monal – The Nine Coloured Mountain Pheasant

Monal (also known as the Impeyan Pheasant or Impeyan Monal) is one of the most stunningly beautiful birds in the world. This large size pheasant is also known as “nine-coloured bird”. The bird has an iridescent rainbow-like plumage. However the look of the bird is pleasing to eyes but you might get exhausted if you try to assess (count) the numbers of colors on the bird.

Male Himalayan Monal has bright colourful combination of blue, green, purple, light yellow, brown, black and red feathers. They have a white patch of feathers underneath the base of their tail. The breast and underparts are black. The nape is a bright yellow patch which forms the top edge of the bluish black wings and the purplish black back. The chestnut brown/ copper coloured tail, light brown wings and a white rump is visible in flight. The head is bright green, and the males have a metallic-green crest on top of their heads. They have bare patch of turquoise blue skin around the eye. The tail feathers are uniformly rufous (reddish brown in colour) being darker towards the tips. The tail feathers of the male are uniformly rufous which becomes darker towards the tips. The female Himalayan Monal looks completely different from the male. Male Monal is more beautiful, stunning in color and large in size. Females are duller than the males. Females have greyish brown upper-parts with white stick lines and black spots. The under parts of female is light greyish brown with white stick lines. Their upper parts are covered with spotted brownish-black feathers. The throat of females is white. The lower tail coverts of females are white, marked with black and rufous. The female also has a crest.