Himalayan Monal

How to identify

Field marks

1. Male has a coppery-green head and a long crest with spoon-shaped tips
2. Upperparts coppery-green, purple and blue-green, with a metallic gloss
3. White rump conspicuous in flight
4. Male has rufous tail feathers

Male, female and young

Female dull, rufous-brown overall with black, rufous and yellow markings, and a white throat and lower back; juveniles and one-year-old males resemble the female.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: April · Most records: Bhutan, China, India

Himalayan Monal has been recorded at 32 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 4 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

To protect this bird from disturbance, we don't list exact sites.

Countries and regions with the most records

BhutanChinaIndiaNepal

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The Himalayan monal (Lophophorus impejanus), also called Impeyan monal, is a landfowl native to Himalayan forests and shrublands at elevations of 2,100–4,500 m (6,900–14,800 ft). It is part of the family Phasianidae and is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

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