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Rufous-breasted Wood Quail | Odontophorus speciosus
Bruinborsttandkwartel | Corcovado pechirrufo | Uru-de-peito-ruivo
The Rufous-breasted Wood Quail is the wood quail of foothill and lower montane forest on the eastern slope of the Andes, from Ecuador to Bolivia. The male has a uniform rufous breast and belly, the female a rufous breast and a grey belly. Like all wood quails it lives in groups on the forest floor.
Voice
A loud, rhythmic duet of rapidly repeated, rolling notes, mainly at dawn. Also soft contact notes within the group.
Recording: Jonas Nilsson — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
25–28 cm, compact, with a short tail and a short, brown crest. The upperparts are brown, finely mottled black, with pale spots on the wings. The face and throat are blackish, with a rufous eyebrow. In the male the breast and belly are uniform rufous; in the female the breast is rufous and the belly grey. Juveniles resemble the female but are duller.
Confusion species
Marbled Wood Quail Odontophorus gujanensis lives lower, in the lowlands, and is greyish brown and mottled, with orange-red skin around the eye and no rufous underparts. Starred Wood Quail Odontophorus stellatus of the Amazonian lowlands has a grey neck and small white spots on the breast. Stripe-faced Wood Quail Odontophorus balliviani lives higher in Peru and Bolivia and has large pale spots on the underparts.
Habitat
The floor of humid foothill forest and lower montane forest, also old secondary forest, at roughly 700 to 2200 m. Groups search the leaf litter for seeds, fruit and invertebrates. The nest is on the ground.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Absent from Colombia. In Ecuador on the eastern slope of the Andes. In Peru along the whole eastern slope. In Bolivia on the eastern slope in La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. Absent from the Galápagos. Endemic to the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Listen at dawn for the duet along forest trails in foothill forest on the eastern slope, such as on the lower parts of the Manu road in Peru. Groups move off at any noise; wait quietly on a trail.
Conservation status
Least Concern. Locally the species suffers from deforestation and hunting.
Scientific name
Odontophorus speciosus | Tschudi, 1843
Tschudi described the species in 1843 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. 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 speciosus, 'showy, conspicuous'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Chanchamayo, Junín, Peru.