The crest is a fixed disc rather than a mobile structure. In an adult male it arches from the crown forward over the base of the culmen so that, in profile, the bill largely disappears behind it. This flattens the head into a single orange curve, which is the shape usually seen at a lek.
Display grounds are communal and traditional, occupied year after year. Males gather in the understorey, hold small perches within a few metres of neighbours, and perform bowing, wing-flapping and loud squawking bouts that intensify sharply when a female arrives. She inspects and chooses, then leaves; the male contributes nothing further.
The orange pigment is carotenoid-derived and therefore diet-dependent, which is the usual reason such colours are treated as honest condition signals. Whether female cocks-of-the-rock actually assess plumage colour rather than display vigour or perch position has not been established.