The Green Peafowl tends to live in small parties, resting and occasionally feeding
in the undergrowth by day, and moving out into cultivation (if nearby) to forage more
intensively in the morning and evening, or sometimes onto sand and shingle banks beside
rivers (it swims very well: K. B. Woods verbally 2000), where it also sometimes roosts (Stanford
and Ticehurst 1938–1939, Smythies 1986). In most areas it is shy and wary, running away
swiftly when approached (Smythies 1986), but where it is (or was) less persecuted birds can
be quite tame. For example, at the Pidaung Sanctuary, Myanmar, some individuals once
showed little fear of man (Stanford and Ticehurst 1938–1939). It goes to roost early in the
evening on large trees with little foliage, calling out loudly as it does so and again prior to
descending in the morning (Peacock 1933). This behaviour renders it easy to locate and hunt
(Evans and Timmins 1995, Yang Lan in litt. 1998, Xu Yangong et al. 1998); moreover, like
many other galliforms, it gives an instantaneous involuntary calling response to loud noises
such as gunshots and falling trees, making it easy to track down even after normal roosting
calling is over (Lowe 1933). Research has shown a correlation between the minimum number
of birds present and calling frequency of each bird; in other words calling is socially facilitated
and more frequent in large populations (Brickle et al. 1998).