The Enigmatic White-Tailed Monal

The White-tailed Monal remains an elusive bird in the high-altitude landscape of Arunchal Pradesh. Here’s an account of the most recent sighting that put many theories to rest.

- R.Suresh Kumar

About an hour’s drive from Dirang town in western Arunachal Pradesh, the pineclad slopes gave way to young trees of Alder. The road was a series of hair-pin bends with frequent landslides. Ahead, the mountain slope turned precipitous and the road became nonexistent. While road construction teams had tried their best, heavy snowfall ate away whatever little that could be maintained. This was in 1998, when I was heading up to Sela Pass for the first time. This continues to be one of India’s most dangerous roads. However, at 4200 m, I was more interested in Sela Pass only because this was Monal country.

Monal pheasants are amongst the most brilliantly coloured birds in the world. The bright bluish-green iridescent plumes are attributed only to the males while females are earthier in colour. Monals are Himalayan equivalent of peacocks, and are known as Mountain Peacocks. Found across the Himalayan arc and adjoining mountains in the east, monals (three species in all) are birds of high alpine pastures and temperate forests. The Himalayan Monal (Lophophorus impejanus) is the most widely distributed. Smallest in body size, the bird’s range extends from eastern Afghanistan up to the Myanmar-China border. Sclater’s Monal (Lophophorus sclateri), a restricted range species of the Eastern Himalaya, extends from Arunachal Pradesh to Myanmar and China. The Chinese Monal (Lophophorus lhyusii) is the largest restricted range species endemic to South-West China. The males in all three species distinctly differ in their tail colouration with the Himalayan being cinnamon, the Sclater’s being chestnut with a white band on the tip, and the Chinese having an iridescent bluish-green colour.

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