This story is part of The Better India’s new wildlife series, Species in Focus: 52 species. 52 stories. 52 reasons to protect India’s wildlife. One species at a time, the series explores India’s rare, endangered and lesser-known wildlife, their habitats, behaviour, ecological roles and conservation status.

The Himalayan monal, the state bird of Uttarakhand, is calling at higher frequencies in parts of the Himalayas where traffic, tourists, pilgrims and other human activity have made the landscape noisier.

Researchers at Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University recorded 719 monal calls between April 2023 and June 2024, comparing a relatively quiet stretch of Madmaheshwar Valley with the busier Chopta Valley in the Kedarnath Musk Deer Sanctuary.

Published in Behavioural Processes in August 2025, the study by Rajeev Lochan, Dinesh Kumar Sharma and Anand Kumar found that in the noisier landscape, the birds produced calls with higher peak frequencies and slightly longer durations.

The likely reason is that the birds are trying to be heard.

A call helps a bird communicate, find mates and defend its territory. So when that call changes, it is worth paying attention. The finding suggests that human-generated noise is reaching far enough into the monal’s habitat to make the bird alter the way it communicates.

The monal has not moved away. It appears to be changing its voice to cope with a landscape that is getting louder.

And scientists do not yet know what that adjustment could cost the bird.

For a bird adapted to high-altitude forests and alpine landscapes, the changes are happening both around it and, now, in the soundscape through which it communicates.

Two valleys, two soundscapes

To understand how noise was affecting the monal, the researchers listened to it in two very different settings.

Madmaheshwar Valley provided the quieter comparison. The area has relatively........

© The Better India