Cheer pheasant - third time lucky

The second pheasant breaks from cover without warning. Just as with the first, there is no call. No clue to the gathering together of a heavy body. No glimpse of the unfurled wings before it launches into flight down the steep ravine. For us watchers too, there is no time to snatch up the binoculars or to point a camera lens at this gorgeous bird as it glides down towards us.

All one can do is stare in wide-eyed, wondrous enchantment.

This second bird is a male cheer pheasant. Two impossibly long central tail-feathers stream behind.  The under-tail feathers are splayed out and stiff with the caudals, making the pheasant appear twice as large as the body itself. The neck is stretched forward, with the crest laid flat along the nape. A large crimson patch around the eye is the sole splash of bright colour. The plumage is mottled with shades of brown and grey and buff, the earth tones mirroring the textures of the dried grass from which it has burst into flight.

cheer pheasant

Achingly soon, from across the ravine and above us, the pheasant is down into cover again, perhaps 60 meters away.  Now binoculars are raised, and the late evening light brightens immediately through the Nikon glass. Half shadows spring into sharp focus, but the pheasant has frozen after alighting.

Then a stalk of grass moves almost imperceptibly: a give-away in the absence of the slightest breeze. Cautiously, a long neck is periscoped up, over the level of the grass, and a bright eye fixes us in a red-orbed glare. The bird  is motionless otherwise, perfectly hidden in its domain. If you lose it in the binoculars, you have to scan the spot carefully to pick it out again. Seemingly satisfied with the lack of any apparent threat and confident in its camouflage, it now steps forward onto a just-visible pugdandi. Where the narrow track doubles back on itself, leading higher, the full length of the pheasant is profiled in the small opening. 

It is magnificent.

The cheer does not have the pyrotechnic flamboyance of a monal, nor the sartorial slickness of a koklass. Neither would its appearance startle the observer, as does the shocking contrast of silvery hackles on the blue-black plumage of the kaleej. The cheer gives the impression of understated elegance and grace. And it is almost as difficult to track down as the jujurana itself – the western tragopan. In this very area, and in the dense forest that stretches from the crest of the hill above to the adjacent mountains that comprise the Great Himalayan National Park, is excellent habitat for all four of these pheasant species.

This particular male is the ninth of the cheer pheasants that we have seen today.

cheer and ghooral ravines

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The day had begun for us before dawn, with a short torch-lit hike to get into position at the base of a cliff overlooking two faces of a ravine. Our host (and guide) had received information the previous evening that cheer were calling from this area just before roosting.

It is late November, and even though the first winter snows have not yet fallen here, at 2200 meters, it is cold. Cold, particularly when you have to remain motionless, crouching in the lee of scanty cover on this exposed mountainside.

Well before the first rays of the sun fire the snow-capped mountains in the distance, a group of birds starts calling, clucking rather, in our vicinity. The sound is not loud but is surprisingly far-carrying in the still air.

'Chair!' announces our host softly. (The local pronunciation is a mix between 'chair' and 'chayedh').

The calls are answered by another group farther down the mountainside. Fantastic! So we now know that the pheasants are here. The second-hand information, gleaned from the internet, that has brought us here is indeed correct - this is cheer country.

We are in ideal cheer habitat: vertiginous south-facing grass-covered mountain slopes, fissured by boulder-strewn and vegetation-choked ravines. The poor soil and the steep gradient prevent trees from growing. However, the monsoon rains nourish luxuriant swathes of grass. Local communities have traditionally harvested this to make hay for livestock. Our hosts too have been sheep-and-goat herders and subsistence farmers for generations. Unlike many communities living elsewhere on similar mountains in the western Himalayas, the villagers here protect the cheer. Sections of grasslands, particularly those contiguous to the shrubbery and trees which proliferate in the ravines, are not cut down after the rains.  Vertical cliffs sprout grassy tussocks clinging on to clefts and ledges on the rock faces. These small pockets of cover are used by the cheer.

Every morning, the cheer start calling at 6:20 am- you can set your watch by the calls. But to see them is quite another matter.

the birders 

Today we wait in expectation, carefully scanning the area from where the calls emanate. The light grows stronger. Soon the forested mountain opposite is bathed in sunlight. The Tirthan river glitters silently far below. A male hen harrier glides past low overhead, the black-tipped primaries accentuating the supple and narrow silvery-grey wings. The cheer stop calling.

Another hour passes. A warming sun thaws a benumbed nose and cold ears. There is no movement visible from where the cheer have been calling. Warm jackets are now shed. The movement triggers a sudden response from the opposite side of the ravine: a large animal emerges into the open and climbs with sure-footed agility up the slope. It is a ghooral. Of the cheer there is no sign.

We look at each other and concur quickly with our guide that we will have to get closer to the ravine from where the cheer were calling. We begin to scramble downhill. A vertigo episode the previous week, and a 14-hour drive the day before, are handicaps that prevent me from keeping up with the others. This is not a place to miss your footing. A carelessly dislodged stone gathers momentum as it cartwheels downhill. There is nothing to arrest its fall over 500 meters to the valley below.

Pausing to catch my breath, I look down at my companions. Their body language suggests unmistakable excitement. Then the guide points towards the cliff opposite. A telephoto lens snaps up to a shooting position. We have contact!

They gesture for me to join them quickly. With one eye on the pugdandi and the other trying to catch sight of the still-invisible cheer, I redouble my efforts. Too late though! I can sense from the reactions of the birders that the cheer have taken to the wing. All I manage is an all-too-brief glimpse through the binoculars of two pheasants flying downhill in deep shadow. Most unsatisfactory.

Yet the others have had good views of five cheer - three birds had flushed earlier than the two that I did see. Photos are now reviewed. Inevitably, these are somewhat disappointing to the photographer. Shooting from bright sunlight into deep shadow, along with the cheer's camouflage in the grass, has resulted in soft images despite the close proximity of the pheasants.

This first encounter with the cheer has whetted our appetite for more. We now decide to approach the southerly ravine from where another group of cheer had called earlier. It is hot work in the bright sunlight. Again, I find myself lagging behind. A flock of alpine accentors dusts down onto rocks close-by and merges immediately into the terrain. A tiny forested copse studded with large rounded boulders rings with the sharp calls of unseen birds. Soon a pair of red-billed blue magpies emerges from the trees, playfully chasing each other, with their long blue-and-white tail-streamers floating behind.

The shadow of a raptor flits past me. It is the female hen harrier this time. At eye level and very close. She quarters low over the jagged terrain, the white upper-tail coverts brilliant in the sunlight. With the binoculars firmly focused on the harrier, I feel that I'm floating with the raptor. She dips her finely-barred left wing and checks suddenly, pirouetting in mid-air. Talons flash on dangling legs, inches above the grass. Then a languid stroke of lithe wings, and she is borne aloft.

'Did you see them?'

Reverie broken, I look up in confusion.

'The hen harrier went for the second cheer!' - my companions exclaim.

'What?'

Obviously I have missed the two cheer that flushed right across from me. In the best possible light. And in the open. At eye level. It would have been a dream sighting.

The cheer had shown themselves just at the precise moment when I had the harrier in the binoculars. The harrier had feinted a mock-attack on one of the birds when it was lunging back into cover.

I would have to stew away until late evening when we did finally get a good look at the last pair of cheer. It would be third time lucky.

the homestay