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Crested Bobwhite | Colinus cristatus
Kuifbobwhite | Colín crestudo
The Crested Bobwhite is a small South American quail that in the guide area occurs only in Panama, in the open savannas and pastures of the Pacific side. The male has a long, pointed, pale crest. Groups often walk in the open along road verges and tracks.
Voice
In the breeding season the male gives a fast, hoarse kwoit-bob-wheet or a two-syllable o-wheet, often from a post, low bush or termite mound. Groups keep in contact 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, with grey, black and pale spots. 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 with a pale supercilium and throat; the female has a shorter, browner crest and duller markings. The subspecies in Panama is C. c. panamensis.
Confusion species
There is no other bobwhite in Panama. Spot-bellied Bobwhite Colinus leucopogon lives further north, from Guatemala to Costa Rica, and has a shorter crest. Wood quails such as Marbled Wood Quail Odontophorus gujanensis and Tawny-faced Quail Rhynchortyx cinctus live in forest rather than open country.
Habitat
Open grassland and savanna with scattered shrubs, pasture, field edges, road verges and fallow land in the lowlands, up to about 1500 m. 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 units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
In the guide area only in Panama, in the Pacific lowlands and low hills from Chiriquí east through Veraguas, Herrera, Los Santos and Coclé to western Panamá province. Outside the guide area in northern South America, in Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas and northern Brazil, and on Aruba and Curaçao.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the open ranchland and savannas of Coclé, Herrera and Los Santos, for example along the Pan-American Highway near Aguadulce and around Chitré, especially early in the morning when the males call.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common in the open country of Pacific Panama; the species benefits from the conversion of forest into pasture.
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.