A courtship picture of a male white-bellied golden pheasant in the Baima Snow Mountain, Yunnan Province, was photographed

Source: People's Daily - Yunnan Channel Original draft

People's Daily Diqing, August 25 (Zeng Wisdom) Recently, in the Baima Snow Mountain National Nature Reserve in Yunnan, the Tacheng Management Office carried out infrared camera field data collection, and found a precious picture of the courtship of the white-bellied golden pheasant, a national second-level protected animal.

The footage was taken on April 17 this year, in which a male white-bellied pheasant has a bloody bulge under his eyes, and the white feathers on the back of his neck are erect, fanned out like a cape of armor, with his wings drooping and his back tilted. It constantly dances the "circle dance" around the female, making a "whoosh, whoosh" sound while doing its best to show off its gorgeous feathers.

According to experts, the white-bellied golden pheasant courtship show off time is as short as ten minutes, as long as more than half an hour, in this process, the male bird will also peck the female bird's head from time to time, if the female bird is pecked and crouched, the male bird will immediately jump to the back of the female bird, and use the mouth to peck the female head feathers for tail sex, and finally complete a courtship process.

It is reported that the white-bellied golden pheasant, also known as the chicken, belongs to the pheasant family and the genus of the golden pheasant. Listed as a national level II priority protected wildlife and the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN). It is mainly distributed in southeastern Tibet, central Sichuan, western and southwestern Sichuan, western and southwestern Guizhou, western Guangxi and most of Yunnan, and northeastern Myanmar.