Description:

Medium sized pheasant with fully feathered face. Long, broadly barred tail, pronounced crest, and red facial skin. Male has bottle-green head and ear-tufts, chestnut on breast, and streaked appearance to body. Female has white throat, short buff ear-tufts, and streaked body.

Distribution:

Rare resident restricted to the central areas of Diamer and Gilgit districts. Prefers temperate subalpine coniferous and mixed forests in steep terrain with thick understorey, down to 1600m in winter and near treeline at 4000m in spring.

Behavior:

Rarely seen foraging because flushes so quickly, but produces deep feeding scrapes on forest floor. Loose flocks form in winter, but mostly in pairs, and mainly forages in early morning and late afternoon. Eats variety of seeds, including acorns, berries and buds; also insects and worms. Mainly grass, ferns and moss, as well as seeds and fruits and seeds and tender needles of pine and spruce.

Photo Gallery:

Range & Occurrence:

Resident Species

Summer Breeder

Winter Visitor

Passage Migrant

Distribution Map of Koklass Pheasant in Gilgit-Baltistan (Status: )

Seasonal Occurrence of Koklass Pheasant

Resources:

Birds of Pakistan: Helm Field Guides (R. Grimmett & T. Inskipp)
The Birds of Pakistan (T. J. Roberts)
Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (C. Inskipp, R. Grimmett & T. Inskipp)
Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide (P. Rasmussen & J. Anderton)
Birds of India: Collins Field Guide (N. Arlott)
Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan (S. Ali & S. D. Ripley)
Handbook of the Birds of the World (https://www.hbw.com)
The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World, 6th Edition
iNaturalist BoGB (inaturalist.org/projects/birds-of-gilgit-baltistan)
Birds of Gilgit-Baltistan (http://fb.me/birdsgb)

*Gallery images on this page are shared from flickr.com, and are copyrighted to their respective creators or owners.