High Five Hariyal

Friends hope you had a fantastic Navratri, wish you all the best for upcoming vacation time, ensure you plan an outing with your loved at least for a couple of days and if possible connect them with natural/wilderness places. We need to nurture our new generation from a young age itself so as they value Mother Nature when they grow up, it will certainly, help us to protect our wildlife and Mother Nature in the long run. 

Now let us talk about today’s flavor, the first time it was an easy decision for me to finalize the topic because I picked up this topic from the list I shared with you last week about State Birds. Since I belong to Mumbai (Maharashtra), I opted to start with State Bird of Maharashtra “Yellow-footed Green Pigeon” or you can say Hariyal, let us take our learning to the next level.

The Hariyal

With this section I will explain the structure of the bird so that you can identify when you see it and in the next section I will provide you details of habits and other similar facts of the bird. 

They have a yellowish olive-green body, duller above with a blue-grey crown. Forehead and lores often suffused pale olive-green. They have lilac patch on the shoulders and a conspicuous yellow bar in the blackish wings

Neck dark golden olive-yellow tinged greenish, mauve shoulder patch, bright yellow fringes to the wing coverts

Female is slightly duller than male. The adult female is very similar to the male but tends to be duller and with a more restricted mauve shoulder patch. Juvenile are paler and duller than the female, lacking or almost lacking the mauve shoulder patch

The flight is noisy, swift, strong, and direct, and the call is a series of about ten beautiful, mellow, musical whistles, which usually give the first indication of their presence in a locality

Fantastic Facts

The yellow-footed green pigeon (Treron phoenicoptera), also known as yellow-legged green pigeon, is a common species of green pigeon found in the Indian subcontinent. It is the state bird of Maharashtra; in Marathi, it is called Hariyal

They prefer semi-evergreen forests, deciduous forests, wooded habitats, and secondary forests up to 800 meters. They commonly found in roadside trees particularly Banyan and Peepal trees. Also visits gardens even inside towns

Yellow-footed green pigeons are herbivores. They feed on various fruits, berries, and crops. They also feed on buds, shoots and various grains

The breeding season is between March to June. During the courtship, the male puffs out his throat and breast, lowers his wings, ruffles out his feathers, then prances solemnly up and down the branch, continually bowing his head and whistling softly as he makes his way backward and forwards to and from the female. Sometimes the female responds with a similar but less intense version of this display

Nest is a relatively slight platform of twigs in a tree or shrub. Eggs 1 to 2, white, glossy in color. The incubated period is between 13 to 15 days. Both sexes share domestic duties

There was a debate and discussion on changing the State Bird of Maharashtra somewhere around in the year 2011. The point of discussion was to make critically endangered bird as a State Bird so as awareness is created to save such endangered species. The proposition was to make “Forest Owlet” a State Bird of Maharashtra but the other side of the coin was that overexposing the Forest Owlets will go against it and will be difficult to protect and hence finally State Wildlife Board decided to continue with “Yellow Footed Green Pigeon as a State Bird

Learning of the day  

State Flower of Maharashtra

Jarul Flower (Lagerstroemia Speciosa): PRIDE OF INDIA

Lagerstroemia speciosa or giant crape myrtle is also called Pride of India. This ornamental plant is native to tropical parts and subtropical of southern Asia, India, and The Philippines.  The leaves of the plants are used in tea preparation and the plant is also one of the herbal plants widely promoted by the Philippine government for its medicinal value.  In Theravada Buddhism, the plant represents the enlightenment

BT Wild Art

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