Roger Moo a.k.a. cactus400D was in China around April 2008 when he visited Zhangjiajie in the province of Hunan, a popular tourist destination. Along the way, he stopped at a place called ‘Kingdom Village (Town of Fu Rong) – Wang Village’ and documented his most interesting encounter (above).
What he saw was some of the most beautiful local birds, pheasants mainly. But they were not in their natural habitat. Rather, they were prominently displayed in the front of the many shops along the main road (left). These shops were selling exotic meat for tourists, mainly local wildlife.
The most prominent birds displayed appeared to be the Golden Pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus), also called Chinese Pheasant (below). These were hung with their full colourful plumage and long tail feathers dangling. The spectacularly beautiful male pheasant has a golden crest and rump, bright red body and exceedingly long and pointed tail feathers.
Also seen was the Lady Amherst’s Pheasant (C. amherstiae).
All images by Roger Moo.
This post is a cooperative effort between www.naturepixels.org and BESG to bring the study of bird behaviour through photography to a wider audience.
Haniman
That looks like a hog badger (Arctonyx collaris) in between the birds. They can be identified by the prominent hog-like snout and the stripes on the face. Can be found from Bhutan all the way down to Sumatra,Indonesia. I remember seeing hundreds of thier carcasses and that of civets burnt in a pile during the SARS epidemic on the news.