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Gorgeted Wood Quail | Odontophorus strophium
Witkeeltandkwartel | Corcovado gorjiblanco | Uru-de-colar
The Gorgeted Wood Quail is a wood quail found only on the western slope of the Eastern Andes of Colombia. It lives in a small area of oak forest and montane forest in Santander and Cundinamarca. The black throat with a white collar gives the species its name.
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Voice
A loud, rhythmic duet of repeated notes, mainly at dawn, as in other wood quails. Also soft contact notes within the group.
Recording: Ross Gallardy — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
25 cm, compact, with a short tail and a short, dark crest. The crown and upperparts are brown, finely mottled black. The face is black with white speckles; the throat is black, with a narrow white band below it and black again beneath that. In the male the underparts are rufous with white spots; in the female the throat is partly rufous and the underparts are duller. Juveniles are duller and less sharply marked.
Confusion species
Black-fronted Wood Quail Odontophorus atrifrons lives further north, in the northern Eastern Andes and the Serranía de Perijá, and has an all-black face without a white collar. Marbled Wood Quail Odontophorus gujanensis lives lower and has a brown face with orange-red skin around the eye. Crested Bobwhite Colinus cristatus is smaller and lives in open country.
Habitat
The floor of humid montane forest, especially forest with Andean oak (Quercus humboldtii), and old secondary forest, at roughly 1700 to 2050 m. It lives in small groups that search the leaf litter for seeds, fruit and invertebrates. Little is known about the nest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Endemic to Colombia: on the western slope of the Eastern Andes, in Santander and Cundinamarca, mainly in the area south of Bucaramanga. Absent from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the Galápagos.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The species lives in a few protected areas in Santander, such as reserves in the oak forest around Encino and the forests near Bucaramanga. Groups are shy; listen for the duet at dawn.
Conservation status
Vulnerable. The habitat is small and heavily fragmented by clearance for farming and ranching, and the species is hunted locally.
Scientific name
Odontophorus strophium | (Gould, 1844)
Gould described the species in 1844 as Ortyx (Odontophorus) strophium; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Odontophorus was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. The genus name comes from Greek odous, odontos, 'tooth', and -phoros, 'bearing', after the serrated edge of the bill. The species name is Latin strophium, 'breast band', after the white throat and breast band. The specimen the first description was based on came from Colombia.