What behavior is the male peacock's train display in March-April of the Gregorian calendar each year?
The peacock is regarded as the “King of Birds”, the most beautiful ornamental bird, and a symbol of good fortune, kindness, beauty and nobility. There are four species of peacock in the world: the green peafowl, the Indian peafowl, the white peafowl and the black peafowl. As we know, only the male peacock can naturally display its train. So what behavior is it when the male peacock displays its train in March-April of the Gregorian calendar each year? According to the staff of Kunming Zoo in Yunnan, the male peacock spreads its tail feathers and keeps performing all kinds of graceful dance movements to show off its beauty to the female peacock and thereby attract her. After it succeeds in courtship, it lays eggs and raises its chicks together with the female peacock. At the same time, there is also the modern commonly used term "peacock displaying its train", which means being unrequited in love, a one-sided wish!
The detailed reasons for displaying the train are as follows:
1. Courtship. Spring is the season when peacocks lay eggs and reproduce. So the male peacock spreads its colorful, brilliantly hued train and keeps performing all kinds of graceful dance
movements to show off its beauty to the female peacock and thereby attract her. After it succeeds in courtship, it lays eggs and raises its chicks together with the female peacock.
2. Protecting itself. On the peacock's large train, we can see five-colored golden-green line patterns, among which are scattered many roughly circular “eye spots”; from the inside out, these markings are made up of colors such as purple, blue, brown, yellow and red. Once it encounters an enemy and has no time to escape, the peacock suddenly displays its train and then shakes it with a “rustling” sound, and many of the eye spots move about wildly in response; the enemy, frightened by this “many-eyed monster”, then does not rashly advance.
3. Being startled. In zoos, we often see peacocks displaying their trains. Zoologists believe that brightly colored clothing and the loud talking and laughing of visitors can stimulate peacocks and arouse their vigilance and alertness. At such times, the peacock's train display is also a kind of intimidating, defensive action. Anyone who pays attention to observing various natural phenomena will notice that when predatory animals such as hawks and weasels attack a hen with chicks, the hen will also raise its feathers to fight the enemy. This action is merely a defensive reaction of theirs. The peacock's train-display action when startled is the same.
Appendix: Is the peacock the phoenix?
The phoenix is the King of Birds; the male is the feng and the female is the huang. It is a mythological fiction, and its original forms are many. Such as the golden pheasant, the peacock, the eagle and vulture, the swan, the xuan bird (swallow) and so on... Some also say it was transformed from the Buddhist garuda. The phoenix in phoenix mythology is said to have a chicken's head, a swallow's chin, a snake's neck, a fish's tail, and five-colored patterns. It is also said that the feng has five varieties, distinguished by color: red is the feng, green is the luanniao, white is the swan, and there are also yellow and purple ones.