Indian Peafowl has been added to Category C in Croatia, rendering the species ‘tickable’ as a wild bird in the Balkan country.
According to the fifth report of the Croatian Birds Rarities Committee, the spectacular member of the Phasianidae family has regularly breeds in several localities in Croatia. An example given in the report is the island of Lokrum, where it has been breeding for more than 10 years. As a result, the committee have chosen to add to Category C of the country’s avifauna.
This decision has been met with scepticism in some quarters and doubts remain as to whether the move follows Association of European Rarities Committees (AERC) guidelines. As a result, it remains unclear if Indian Peafowl will become tickable in the Western Palearctic.
The addition of Indian Peafowl to Category C of the Croatian list may see Western Palearctic birders descend upon the Balkon country to snag a regional tick (Jaz Hughes).
Indian Peafowl in Britain
In Britain, Indian Peafowl arrived with the Romans, and numbers at large in the countryside have fluctuated over time since then. A paper published in British Birds in June 2019 described a well-established feral population at Nuneham Courtenay, Oxfordshire, and presented a brief survey of feral birds elsewhere in Britain.
The paper argued that the Nuneham Courtenay birds are self-sustaining and merited consideration for Category C1 or C4 of the British List, although this was not followed up by the British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU).