Not ‘Froth on Top’ Instead a ‘Peacock on Top’?

Not ‘Froth on Top’ Instead a ‘Peacock on Top’?

Mangaluru: With over fifty glorious years after being named the National Bird of India, the peacock continues to mesmerize with its grace and rich colourful tail. But there is no count of peacocks in the country or even the states where they are found in abundance, and an attempt to do so failed miserably, given that there’s no quality research done on peacocks. Experts say peacocks are in the least endangered species category, thereby ruling them out of the research bracket.

With deforestation and lots of vegetation being destroyed to make way for infrastructure, many wild birds including peacocks make their way into the nearby cities- and for that matter, Mangaluru is no exception- because if you go around in the outskirts of the Coastal city, you’ll find bunch of these colorful birds wandering around where there is plenty of vegetation or water. Peacock habitats are being destroyed, there are certain regions which suit them better. There’s a human invasion with towns spreading into forests, and their natural territories are shrinking. I have seen peacock roaming on plain fields/land, but never seen it sit on top of a hoarding? But what I saw today was quite unique- a peacock came flying from no where and landed on the roof of a pub near Arya Samaj/Balmatta Road in City.

Being a hot weather today, the peacock might have wanted to quench its thirst on a mug or pitcher of cold “Foster” beer. I guess the peacock seeing the sign on the pub wall stating “We don’t serve minors” , and that a bevy of girls yelling too loud at the pub, did confused and scared this creature, so it decided to flew and sat on top of the nearby hoarding. Surprising to note that the peacock could quickly fly so high and sit on the hoarding which was pretty height in length. The bird after it sat on the hoarding was so scared, deciding whether to fly or not, because of height. In spite of many nearby admirers trying to shoo it away, it still didn’t move a bit- instead kept looking down at its “Bird-Watchers?”

Some of the people below, including a bunch of auto-rickshaw drivers were worried, that the peacock could come in contact with a bunch of electric wires that were nearby to the hoarding. But with good thinking, the bird kept jumping from top of the hoarding on to the nearby building top- and from there slowly flew on to a lower building- and vanished into the nearby bunch of trees. Everyone was happy that the “National Bird” made it safe in to the woods!

In the meantime many people felt that the Forest Department should create a favorable atmosphere for peacock breeding, and it should conduct a census with the help of researchers and make attempts to make nearby villages peacock reserves. But given that the peacock is a very adaptive species and is distributed across the country, the proud peacock is certainly not endangered. Peacocks have a better chance of survival over the years and there’s a lot of cultural significance attached to this bird. However, this cultural connect is fading slowly and needs to be revived for peacocks to thrive in the country.