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Banded Quail | Philortyx fasciatus
Bandkwartel | Codorniz rayada
The Banded Quail is a small, inconspicuous quail of dry scrub in south-western Mexico, mainly in the basin of the Río Balsas. It is the only species in its genus and occurs only in Mexico. Outside the breeding season it lives in coveys of around a dozen birds.
Voice
Covey members keep in contact with soft calls; scattered birds find each other with repeated, louder whistled calls, mainly in the morning and evening.
Recording: Manuel Grosselet — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
18–20 cm; a small, brown quail with a pointed dark crest and a fairly long tail for a quail. The face and throat are pale. The upperparts are brown with pale and dark spots and bars on the back and wings; the underparts are white with bold black bars, which give the species its name, and the undertail coverts are also barred black and white. Male and female are similar. Young birds are at first streaked white and after some weeks acquire an almost black face and throat, before reaching adult plumage at four to five months.
Confusion species
Northern Bobwhite Colinus virginianus partly shares the same area, but lacks the pointed crest, the male has a boldly patterned head with a white or black throat, and both sexes have scaled or spotted rather than evenly barred underparts. Montezuma Quail Cyrtonyx montezumae is rounder and shorter-tailed, with a black-and-white patterned face in the male, and lives higher in oak and pine forest.
Habitat
Dry scrub and dry forest, thorn scrub, overgrown fields and pasture with shrubs and hedges, from sea level to about 1800 m. It lives in coveys of around a dozen birds, sometimes up to thirty, and stays close to cover. When threatened it prefers to run rather than fly; a flushed covey scatters in all directions. It eats seeds, tubers, buds and insects. It breeds in the rainy season, mainly in August and September.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Only in Mexico, in the south-west: from Jalisco and Colima through Michoacán, Guerrero and Morelos to the south of the state of México and south-western Puebla, centred on the basin of the Río Balsas. The species does not occur outside the guide area.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The chances are best early in the morning along dirt roads through dry scrub in Morelos, Guerrero and Michoacán, where coveys come out of cover to feed. After the rainy season, when the vegetation is dense, they are mostly heard.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common in much of the dry south-west of Mexico and tolerant of man-made landscapes with shrubs.
Scientific name
Philortyx fasciatus | (Gould, 1844)
Gould described the species in 1844 as Ortyx fasciatus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Philortyx was introduced in 1846 by Gould. Philortyx is Greek, from philē 'dear friend' and ortux 'quail': 'dear quail'. fasciatus is Latin for 'banded', from fascia 'band', after the barred underparts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Mexico (originally given in error as California).