All species › Gamebirds › New World quail › Crested Bobwhite
Crested Bobwhite | Colinus cristatus
Kuifbobwhite | Colín crestudo
The Crested Bobwhite is a small quail with a pointed crest that in the region occurs naturally only on Aruba and Curaçao. On both islands it is a familiar bird of the dry scrubland, called patrishi in Papiamento. Small groups often walk in the open across tracks and roads.
Voice
In the breeding season the male gives a fast, husky, three-syllable quoit-bob-white or a two-syllable oh-wheet, often from a low bush or rock. Groups keep in touch with soft calls.
Recording: Jelle Scharringa — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
18–22 cm, round and short-tailed, with a pointed crest. The upperparts are brown, mottled with grey, black and pale. The underparts are rufous to ochre, densely marked with white and black spots. The male has a pale cream to ochre crest and forehead and a boldly marked head; the female is very like the male but browner. When disturbed it flushes on whirring wings and drops back after a short distance.
Confusion species
There is no other quail on Aruba or Curaçao. Northern Bobwhite Colinus virginianus of Cuba, the Bahamas and Hispaniola lacks the pointed crest and has scalloped underparts; the two do not occur together anywhere.
Habitat
Dry thorn scrub and cactus growth, open grassland, waste ground, yards and gardens on the edge of built-up areas. It lives in pairs or small groups on the ground and eats seeds, shoots and insects.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Native to Aruba and Curaçao, as the nominate form C. c. cristatus; absent from Bonaire. Introduced to Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and Mustique in the Grenadines; there are few recent records from those places. Outside the region in northern South America, in Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas and northern Brazil, and locally in Panama.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
On Aruba and Curaçao in the cunucu and dry scrubland, including Arikok National Park on Aruba and Christoffel Park on Curaçao, especially early in the morning when the males are calling. Groups often cross tracks and roads on foot.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common on Aruba and Curaçao. Across most of its range the population appears stable or increasing.
Scientific name
Colinus cristatus | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Tetrao cristatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Colinus was introduced in 1820 by Goldfuss. Colinus derives from the Nahuatl word zōlin, 'quail'. cristatus is Latin for 'crested', after the conspicuous crest. The specimen the first description was based on came from Curaçao.