A rather rotund but exquisitely colored bird, covered in flame orange, flecked with white dots.

Meet Temminck’s tragopan

The Temminck’s tragopan (Tragopan temminckii) is a  medium-sized, up to 64cm long, stocky red pheasant with white-spotted plumage, black bill, and pink legs. The Temminck’s Tragopan cock is an extremely bright-colored bird, mostly a rich shade of orange smothered with whitish ocelli. He has a gorgeous blue face surrounded by black. Like all the Tragopans he has an amazing display and is able to inflate a pair of “horns” from his crown and a bib from the throat.

The “bib” or lappet is particularly vivid with red and blue markings.

The female is a white-spotted brown bird with blue circular eye skin.

These birds live at high altitudes in the Eastern Himalayas, Southern Tibet, Myanmar, and some surrounding areas.  Its range stretches from northeast India, northwest Vietnam, Tibet, and the northern provinces of China.

Temminck’s Tragopan likes to inhabit the widespread forests of northern South Asia.

In the wild Temminck’s tragopan natural diet consists largely of berries, grass, and plants. In captivity, they are fed pheasant pellets to eat as well as fruit and berries and a small number of grains.

The birds will breed in their second year and the hen will start to lay in April. Usually, 2 – 4 eggs are laid in a clutch and up to 12 eggs in a season. Incubation is normally 28 days.

Widespread and a common species throughout its large habitat range, the Temminck’s tragopan is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

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