Day long Activities of Indian Blue Peafowl in Bangladesh National Zoo

Abstract

The research work was carried out from July 2016 to June 2017 to explore the day-long activities of Indian Blue Peafowl habitat at Bangladesh National Zoo. The objectives of the study were to understand the biological activities that happen in a day of this nice creature across different seasons. For this purpose, we selected an equal number of (n= 10) adult peacocks and peahens. Total daytime used by several activities in winter was found 10.51 hours. Peacock spent most of their diurnal time budget (28.10%) in resting state in winter. Feeding and displaying time were 1.74 hours and 1.25 hours, respectively, of the total daytime. Without this percentage of preening time and walking time spent by the Peacock was 11.99 hours and 17.32 hours in winter. Resting, feeding, and walking time spent by the Peahen are 3.02 hours, 2.25 hours, and 2.03 hours, respectively, in winter. Roaming time Peahen is lower (0.88 hours) than displaying time of Peacock. In spring, the total time of several biological activities of Peafowl was found to be 11.54 hours. Resting time, walking time, displaying time, and feeding time were 3.10 hours, 1.98 hours, 1.94 hours, and 1.85 hours, respectively, in spring for Peacock. The percentage of resting and feeding time was higher compared to other two seasons, and it was 28.34 and 21.66 hours of diurnal time budget for Peahen in spring. Roaming time was found to be 9.36% of the total daytime, and time of walking in the day was 2.08 hours for Peahen in spring. Total daytime was found to be 13.15 hours in summer spent by the Indian blue peafowl in several activities. In the summer, daytime is long, so all activities take more time compared to other seasons. Time spent on various behaviors by peacocks during the daytime in summer—resting time, displaying time, feeding time, and walking time—were 26.92%, 16.65%, 16.05%, and 16.20%, respectively. In summer, the Peahen spends more time (3.55 hours) in resting and less time (0.83 hours) in calling, and a big percentage of time (18.40%, 17.64%, and 13.92%) was spent by the Peahen in summer for walking, feeding, and roaming, respectively. Resting, walking, and feeding time were found to be higher in the summer season because the day length is more compared to winter and spring seasons. Roosting and preening time are the same (1.10 hours) for Peahen in summer. Resting time is the highest, and calling time is the lowest for Peacock and Peahen in all seasons. In conclusion, we can say that day-long activities vary based on season and sex.