The Science of Birds - Quails of the New World

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

This is Episode 83. It’s all about birds in the family Odontophoridae. These are the New World quails.Why is this the family of "New World" quails?Because there’s a whole mess of birds we call quails that live in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. But those birds all belong to the pheasant family, Phasianidae. New World quails are shy birds ground-dwelling birds that walk or run around in the daytime, looking for tidbits of food in the leaf litter.If they sense any kind of stranger danger, they hunker down and hide in bushes or other vegetation. Their first instinct is to sit still and rely on their camouflage, rather than to fly away.These birds may be shy around strangers, but they’re generally very social with members of their own kind. They’re gregarious little buggers. In this episode, I go into detail about what New World quails look and sound like, about their diversity, and about the ways they live their lives.  ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website Support the show

On a beautiful crisp morning in November, I was out birding in the mountains of southern Wahaka, Mexico. The sun was shining between tall pine trees and the trail was lined with thick agave plants. I enjoyed seeing bumblebee hummingbirds, brown-backed solitaire, and rufous-capped brush finches that morning. There were also some familiar birds I see regularly back home in Oregon in the U.S., birds like Stellar's J, American Robin, and Townsend's Warbler. But there was one bird in the forest that morning that I never saw. I only heard its distinctive call resonating through the undergrowth. That's the sound of dentrotics macroura, the long-tailed wood partridge.

Some ornithologists call it the long-tailed wood quail. This is an elusive skulking bird that keeps to the shadows. I really wish I had seen it that day, and not just heard it, because the long-tailed wood partridge is a gorgeous beast. It has a stubby orange bill, a black crest, and a face marked boldly with black and white stripes. The gray body is decorated with intricate white and rust-colored spots. And, of course, this bird has a long tail. Well, long for a quail anyway.

The second part of its scientific name, the specific epithet, is Macroura. Macroura. This comes from ancient Greek, and it means long tail. The long-tailed wood partridge is found only in southern Mexico, so it's an endemic species there. It lives in forests high in the mountains, where it forages on the ground, looking for seeds and small fruits and the occasional crunchy bug. The name's quail and partridge seem to be. to be somewhat synonymous, kind of like mountain lion and cougar, or reindeer and caribou. Humans have assigned the name quail or partridge indiscriminately to a bunch of stocky little ground-dwelling

birds around the world. For example, there is a bird called the crested partridge, also known as the green wood partridge, that despite its name is only a distant cousin to the long-tailed wood partridge lurking in the mountains of Mexico. The greenwood partridge lives way over in Southeast Asia. This whole quail partridge naming thing is quite the conundrum. I've tried, but I can't for the life of me figure out if there are any consistent differences between birds we call quails and birds we call partridges. I can't solve that one today. Oh well, but what I can do today is introduce you to the wonderful family of birds that includes the long-tailed wood partridge and all of its close relatives. These are the New World Quails.

Hello and welcome. This is the science of birds. I am your host. I am your host. Ivan Philipson. The Science of Birds podcast is a light-hearted exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners. This is episode 83. It's all about birds in the family, odontophoredi. These are the New World quails. Wait, what's the correct plural form of quail? Is it quails or quail?

You know how we can say fish or fishes and both words refer to more than. than one individual fish? When I took an ichthyology class long ago, I learned that fishes, F-I-S-H-E-S, is what you're supposed to use when you're talking about more than one species of fish. So is that how it works with quail and quails? Honestly, I'm not sure. I actually spent way too much time looking this up while researching this episode. From what I could figure out it seems these two words can be used interchangeably. And so I shall. English is weird. I mean, what if both dog and dogs could be used in the plural sense? Hey, look at all those dog over there. What a bunch of silly dog. Dog are my favorite animals. Anyway, why is the family

odontophoredi referred to as the family of New World quails. Quails. Because there's a whole mess of birds we call quails that live in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. But those birds all belong to the pheasant family, Phasianity. It's like how we have families of old-world parrots and new-world parrots, Old World Orioles and New World Orioles, Old World Sparrows, and New World Sparrows. In some cases, these pairs of old and New World families only look similar, but are not closely related. But with New World Quails, the family odontophority, and the family phasianity that includes some birds we call quails, these two groups are closely related. I'll talk a little more about that in a few minutes.

New World quails are shy birds that walk or run around in the daytime, looking for food on the ground. Some species, like the wood quails in the genus odontophores, will spend the night up in a tree, but they still come down to the ground to forage during the day. If they sense any kind of stranger danger, New World quails hunker down and hide in the bushes or other vegetation. Their first instinct is to sit still and rely on their camouflage rather than to fly away. These birds may be shy around strangers, but they're generally very social with members of their own kind. They're gregarious little buggers. The social groups they form have a name, a collective noun.

A group of quail is called a covey that's spelled C-O-V-E-Y. A group of quail is a covey, but a group of witches is a coven, C-O-V-E-N. Now, I know it's easy to get quails and witches confused, but there are a couple ways you can tell them apart in the field. If you find yourself wondering, is that a quail or a witch? Remember that quails don't usually wear wide-brimmed, pointy black hats while riding around on broomsticks. Also, if it tries to throw your children into a huge cauldron of bubbling green liquid, it's probably a witch. Witches are scary, but quails are the opposite of scary. People generally adore quails because these birds are cute and charismatic. They have rounded, stocky bodies and

short legs. Most species have attractive plumage, and some have little crests or similar feathery adornments on their heads. How about we go into more detail now about what new world quails look and sound like, and about their diversity and about the ways they live their lives? These are fairly small, plump, compact birds, sort of like chickens. Their bodies are egg-shaped. in other words, ovoid. They have short necks, tails, and wings.

A New World quail, to me, looks kind of like a ball with a smaller ball sitting on top. Seeing one of these birds running along the side of a trail, I can't help but think of BB-8, the spherical little droid in the most recent Star Wars trilogy. B-B-B-8 rolled like a ball, and a running quail with its little legs pumping furiously moves surprisingly smoothly, sort of like a rolling ball. I was just watching some YouTube videos of

California quails running, and I literally laughed out loud, L-L-O-L. Now, I just said these birds have short tails. But a moment ago, I was telling you about the long-tailed wood partridge in Mexico, right? What's up with that? Well, it's all relative. Two of the three species of wood partridge, in the genus dendrortics have long tails relative to the other species in this family. But their tails don't seem all that long when you compare them to birds in many other families. I mean, compared to its own body length, the long-tailed wood partridge has a shorter tail than, say, an American robin. And it's not like you look at an American robin and think, dang, that robin has such a long tail. Someone should rename that bird to reflect

the glaring fact that its most conspicuous feature is the extreme length of its tail feathers. We should call it Turdus Macroura, the long-tailed robin. And in case you think I was joking and just made up the genus name Turdus, I did not. That is the real genus for the American Robin. Snicker all you want, kids. Now back to the New World Quails. The legs of these birds may be short, but they're also strong. They use their powerful legs to scratch and dig into the soil as they look for tasty morsels.

And as I mentioned, they like to run. These ground-dwelling birds prefer to tiptoe away quietly through the undergrowth when they want to make an escape. Or if they're out in the open, they're more likely to run away at high speed. But they can fly. Their wings are short and rounded. The technical word to describe this shape, you might recall, is elliptical. The elliptical wing shape is ideal for fast takeoff, short bursts of speed, and high maneuverability. New World quails can launch into the air to make short flights.

This is their last resort when a predator gets too close. If crouching and hiding doesn't work, and they can't skulk away or run away, these birds explode into the air. When sufficiently spooked, all the quail in a covey will flush. They suddenly explode into the air, wings fluttering loudly as they scatter in all directions. They fly a short distance, then hit the ground and take cover. They'll regroup when the coast is clear. All right, let's continue with what these birds look like. The beaks, the bills of New World Quail, are short, thick, and slightly down-curved. The lower mandible, the lower part of the beak, is jagged on the edge. It's serrated. And that, my friends, is what gives this avian family its name. Odontaphoredi comes from the ancient

Greek word odontophoros, which means bearing teeth or toothed. And the last thing you want to do is get bitten by a new world quail with those tiny little, quote-unquote, teeth. The little beast will tear off your hand, man. I'm just kidding, of course, it would probably eat only a finger or two. Bill color varies from species to species. Most of them are black or gray, but a few are yellow or orange. Overall body size is fairly consistent in this family. The smallest species is the banded quail of Mexico, philortix fasciatus. From beak to tail, it's about eight inches or 20 centimeters long. The largest species is none other than our friend Dendrortix Macroura, the long-tailed wood partridge. This bird at up to 16 inches or 40 centimeters long is about

twice the length of the little banded quail. Now what about the plumages of New World quails? A few species have relatively basic plumage patterns and coloration. Yes, I'm looking at you, chestnut wood quail. Now don't get me wrong, I said relatively basic. I think the chestnut wood quail is a highly attractive, rust-colored rock star. It's just that, compared to most of its fellow New World quail species, it isn't all that flashy. The species with a lot more going on in their plumage include the northern bob white, black-throated bob white, mountain quail, califference, California quail, monazuma quail, and oscillated quail. These and all the other species have feathers in some combination of black, white, brown, rufous, and tan. Male quail are usually somewhat more

glamorous, with bolder colors and more complex patterns. Feathers on the faces and heads of males have the brightest color contrast, you know, to impress females and perhaps intimidate rivals. Male Montezuma quails and oscillated quails have stunningly bold black and white facial markings. You know, just like those guys in the hip-hop duo insane clown posse with a black-and-white clown makeup and whatnot, I'm pretty sure the technical name for a covey of Montezuma quail is an insane quail posse. And hey, look, if you don't get the joke here because you've never heard of the insane clown posse, well, you're not missing much. In general, the plumage patterns of both male and female New World Quails include spots, barring, scales, streaks, diamonds, and stripes. These patterns

are complex and dazzling on close inspection. But at a distance, or in the dappled light of the undergrowth, they end up providing some really effective camouflage. Most species sport some kind of head ornament. For example, there is the iconic top knot on the head of the California quail, Callapepla Californica. The top knot is sort of comma or teardrop shaped, with the narrow end attached to the bird's crown and the thick end pointing forward. It's black and composed of six overlapping feathers.

feathers. New World quails often writhe and roll around in dry dirt to remove excess oil and parasites from their feathers. This is called dust bathing, and it's a form of grooming and parasite control. Daily dust bathing is a social activity enjoyed by all members of the covey. Now, it's time to turn our attention to the vocal sound. made by our quail. These are, as I said, secretive birds, so we tend to hear them more often than see them. My little story about birding in the mountains of Mexico illustrates that point. But males will often stand or perch in a conspicuous place and throw back their little heads and blast out their calls. This can be to communicate with the flock or to attract females in the breeding

season. New World quail belong to an ancient group of birds. Their ancestors established the lineage millions of years before the first songbird evolved. These quail, therefore, have a simple syrinx in their tracheas. In other words, they don't have the complex vocal anatomy to make complex melodious songs like robins, warblers, or orioles. In fact, some ornithologists would argue these birds don't really sing songs at all. Quail vocalizations are often referred to as simply calls. Now that said, there is one species with the common name singing quail, so I'm not sure what's going on with that one. Songs, calls, regardless of what you call them, these relatively simple vocalizations can convey a lot of information. For example, the Northern Bob White,

Colinas-Virginianus, has about 20 unique calls, and scientists have worked out the meanings for many of them. Not surprisingly, male Northern Bob Whites have a bunch of calls related to courtship, but the other calls used by this species have to do with things like keeping the group together, feeding, threatening enemies, or warning of danger. The Northern Bob White's most famous vocalization, however, is the one we hear in the breeding season when an unmated male basically just yells his name. Over and over, he shouts, Bob White. Now, most people don't know this, but Bob White is really just a stage name. His full name is Mr. Robert L. White Jr., the third. Also, imagine you're a human and your name is actually Bob White.

I looked it up and there are at least 12 Bob whites who have Wikipedia pages. And there are thousands of Bob whites on LinkedIn. This name is so common there are probably several Bob whites listening to this episode right now. So, hey, Bob, if you're listening, first off, hi, thanks for listening to my show, buddy. What I really want to ask you, though, is, isn't it strange to have a bird running around out there with your name? Bob White? Like, if it were me, I'd be kind of weirded out if there was a bird species called, I don't know, the Western Ivan Philipson. All right, let's move on to some other vocalizations. Almost half of the species in the family Odontaforidae are known as

wood quails. These birds make some calls that are loud and have been described as rolling and guttural. For example, there's the chestnut wood quail that I humiliated earlier when I said that it was basic. Well, in parts of Colombia, where that species lives, people call it Aguacero Bienteado, which I believe is Spanish for windy rainstorm. This refers to the chestnut wood quail's call. Sure, that sounds just like a windy rainstorm. The various wood quail species also like to make group calls. Five or more birds get each other all worked up and join in a raucous.

chorus. There was a study of the black-breasted wood quail published in 2006 in the journal Behavior. This species is found in the tropical forests of Costa Rica and Panama. Black-breasted wood quails, odontophorus, lucolimus, live in covies of two to 15 individuals. Not only do bonded pairs make duets, the entire group will often participate in a coordinated chorus. In the early morning, covies will sing at each other, filling the forest with a racket. Amanda Hale, the author of that 2006 study, hypothesized that choruses may be how covies establish their territorial boundaries, and how they size each other up in terms of how many individuals each group includes. I don't have a recording of black-breasted wood quail

calls, but I do have one from the black-fronted wood quail. I mean, come on. Black-breasted, black-fronted, pretty much the same thing, right? Here's some black-fronted wood quail in Columbia. Anyway, when two black-breasted wood quail covey's come into contact, Not only will they chorus at each other, birds in the opposing groups will also make threatening displays, chase each other around, and get into brawls. Tiny adorable wood quail brawls. It's like a miniature avian version of the turf war in Westside Story, with gangs of woodquail singing and dancing at each other. And because why not, here's the recording of some Rufus-breasted

wood quails in Ecuador. I grew up in California, so naturally I have a special place in my heart for this song. I also have a special place in my heart for the California quail. This species is actually the official state bird of California. California quails have a repertoire of 13 or more calls. There are distinct calls for advertisement, dominance, nesting, alarm, food, and even one that is, apparently, for,

conversation. Here, for example, is the pit-pit call that signals alarm or agitation. But probably the most famous call of the California quail is what ornithologists call the assembly or rally call. Both males and females give this call. An individual makes this sound when it gets separated from the group or from its mate, or it's given when the covey is about to move. Phonetically, the call is described as having three syllables, kukakal, or as my Sibley field guide describes it, Pueh-Way-Doo. Here it is, the rally call of the California quail. My favorite interpretation of the rally call

is that it sounds like the quail is yelling Chicago. So here's another example. See if it sounds to you like Chicago. I think of this rally call. as serving the same purpose as when Captain America says, Avengers assemble. Or in the Transformers when Optimus Prime says,

Autobots roll out. It's a rally cry, like the little California quails are yelling, In unity, we triumph! Or maybe they just really like Chicago. It's time to talk about the diversity and distribution of birds in the family odontophoredi, and we'll look at their habitats too. The family includes 33 species.

These belong to 10 genera. I've been dropping their scientific names today with genera like Kalapepla, dendrortics, and colinus. The genus of the wood quail is Oeuvre. odontophores, and it's the most diverse of the Tengenera. It contains 15 species, so almost half of all the New World quails are in this genus. Once upon a time, all New World quails were included in the pheasant family, Fazionity. The latter includes birds like, well, pheasants, but also chickens, turkeys, and grouse. You can't blame ornithologists back in the day who thought

New World Quail were just a sub-family of phasianity. I mean, I was just looking at illustrations of these birds in one of my favorite books called All the Birds of the World. If you look at the pages full of New World Quails and then flip over to look at the Old World Quails and the family Phasianity, they all look pretty dang similar. So before modern genetic methods that use DNA were developed, ornithologists could use only the physical traits of birds, what we call phenotypic or morphological traits, to decide who is related to who. That approach goes a long way and is still helpful for classifying birds. But at the end of the day, DNA usually gives us the most complete picture of their relationships among groups of birds. New World quails

are genetically distinct enough to deserve their own family. but it's true that their closest relatives are birds in the family phasianity. And New World Quails are also fairly closely related to the guinea fowl, which belong to another family, numiddi. These three families all belong to the taxonomic order, Galliformes. There are two other families in that order, but I'll save them for another day, lest I dump too much information into your little brain. If we look at diversity within the family odontaphoridae, we find it is divided into two sub-families.

One sub-family is tilapacany, and the other is odontapherany. So the family is odontaphora-D, and one of the sub-families, actually the one that contains all but two of the species, is odontaphora-knee. Knee, not D. Knee, knee, knee, knee, knee, knee, Who are you? We are the knights who say, knee. No, not the knight who say knee. The same.

Relationships among all the species in this family and among most of the sub-species are fairly well worked out. The most recent study that helped resolve these relationships was one conducted by Dr. Jesse Salter and Friends, published in 2022 in the journal molecular phylogenetics and evolution. And I can tell you that is a highly prestigious journal because I have a paper published in it. Dr. Salter and co used genomic sequence data to construct a well-supported evolutionary tree for the New World Quails. And just how much of the quote-unquote new world is occupied by birds in this family? The natural geographic distribution of Dantafordi stretches from southern Canada all the way down to southern Brazil. And Africa.

That's right, Africa. You know, that place in the old world? Well, I'll explain in a moment. Don't worry. But first, I want to share a few other factoids. Factoids like this one. The highest species diversity is concentrated in Mexico and Central America. Mexico, for example, has.

has 15 species. The United States, for comparison, has only seven species. Now, I said the natural distribution of odontiforidae was from Canada to southern Brazil. But the unnatural distribution of this family, the supernatural distribution of this family also includes far-flung places like Hawaii, New Zealand, Chile, Europe, and China. That's because silly humans have introduced the California quail and Northern Bobwhite all over the planet. These two species are popular targets for people with guns. They're game birds that people hunt, eat, and raise in captivity. So they've been shipped around the world for these purposes. People have also introduced California quails and Northern Bobwhites to places in North America where they never existed.

For example, northern Bobwhites now live in parts of Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, and some other western states. This species' natural range, though, is in the eastern half of the U.S. Northern Bobwhite and California quail, along with Gamble's quail, are the most commonly observed odontophoried birds in the United States. Much more elusive are species like Montezuma's quail and the mountain quail. The mountain quail, oriotic's Pictus, is probably my favorite species in the entire family. I've heard it many more times than I've seen it. It's the largest New World quail north of Mexico. Males and females look alike, and they are, let me tell you, beautiful.

The head and breast are slate gray. The flanks are a rich chestnut with bold white bars. The throat, too, is that same reddish-brown color and it's bordered in white. And to top it all off, literally, the mountain quail sports a lot. long black head plume made of two straight feathers. These often cling together so that the plume looks like a single black spike, like a little unicorn. The naturalist John Muir also had some nice things to say about the mountain quail, including that this species is, quote, the very handsomest and most interesting of all the American partridges, end quote. Mure wrote an

article about birds that was published in the magazine The Atlantic in 1898. I'll read you an excerpt in which Muir recounts a fun little story about mountain quail that he encountered in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. And I've edited this a tiny bit. Quote, once when I was seated at the foot of a tree on the headwaters of the Merced, sketching, I heard a flock of mountain quail up the valley behind me. and by their voices gradually sounding nearer, I knew that they were feeding toward me. I kept still hoping to see them. Soon one came within three or four feet of me, without noticing me any more than if I were a stump or a bulging part of the trunk against which I was leaning, my clothing being brown

nearly like the bark. Presently, along came another and another, and it was delightful to get so near a view of these handsome chickens, perfectly undisturbed, observe their manners, and hear their low, peaceful notes. At last, one of them caught my eye, gazed in silent wonder for a moment, then uttered a peculiar cry, which was followed by a lot of hurried, muttering notes that sounded like speech. The others, of course, saw me as soon as the alarm was sounded, and joined the wonder talk, gazing and chattering, astonished, but not frightened. Then all with one accord ran back with the news to the rest of the flock.

What is it? What is it? Oh, you never saw the like, they seemed to be saying. Not a deer or a wolf or a bear. Come see, come see. Then they approached cautiously, past the tree, stretching their necks and looking up in turn as if knowing from the story told them just where I was. For 15 or 20 minutes they kept coming and going, venturing within a few feet of me and discussing the wonder in charming chatter. Their curiosity at last satisfied they began to scatter and feed again, going back in the direction they had come from. While I, loathed to part with them, followed noiselessly, crawling beneath the bushes, keeping them in sight for an hour or two, learning their habits and finding out what seeds and berries they liked best. End quote. I love this story.

It illustrates a couple of things. First, it shows us how these birds are curious, highly social, and display what I would call intelligence. Second, this story is a great example of how just sitting quietly and patiently in nature can bring us some amazing experiences with birds and other wildlife. So that was a little tangent about the mountain quail, Oriortics Pictus. Now it's time for something we haven't done in a while. Weirdo alert. Weirdo alert. Yes, the weirdo alert. There are some weird birds we need to talk about. Remember how earlier I said that the distribution of the family odontophority extends to Africa?

Well, that's because there are two members of this family that naturally occur in the family. sub-Saharan Africa, the stone partridge, Tilapacus Petrosis, and Nahan's Partridge, Tilapacus Nahanai. Recall that one sub-family we talked about is called Tilapacany. That word has a silent P, so it begins with P-T-I-L-O. These are the only two species in that sub-family. It's just the Stone Partridge and Nahan's Partridge. Until about 2012, ornithologists placed these two birds in the family Phasianity. Their bills are longer and pointier than your typical New World Quail, so they do look somewhat different from their true closest relatives.

The recognition that these two weirdos live in La Vida Loca in Africa actually belong in the family Odontoforidi resulted from you guessed it, genetic research. Interestingly, after DNA revealed this unexpected relationship, ornithologists re-evaluated the vocal sounds and behaviors of the stone partridge and Nahen's partridge. The ornithologists were like, funny story, when we looked closer, we found that there are some phenotypic similarities between these African birds and the ones across the pond in the new world. We just hadn't noticed them before. Here are the lovely calls of some stone partridges in Ghana,

sounding very excited about who knows what. Now, the question that should be burning in your mind is, how in the world did two species of what we call new species, world quails end up in Africa. Did these compact little birds with their short wings fly over there? Did they swim? Was it aliens? Well, thankfully, some highly intelligent scientists also wanted some answers about the distribution of these birds. They conducted a study and published their results in the Journal of Biogeography in 2015. The researchers used genetic and fossil data and combined all of that with data on prehistoric climate

and ancient land connections between the continents. After lots of complicated statistical analyses, the researchers concluded that the most likely scenario is that the very first odontophorid bird, the single common ancestor of this entire family, lived in the old world. Crazy, I know. This would have been roughly between 30 and 36 million years ago.

The researchers in that 2015 paper pointed out that some ancestral quails probably ran on their short little legs right across the vast land bridge that at that time connected Asia to North America. Once they had invaded the new world, these brave, explorers made their way south. They set up shop in the neotropics. The diversity we see today seems to have originated mostly in Central America, beginning about 18 million years ago. Meanwhile, whatever other ancestral odontophoreids were still running around in the old world, they eventually went extinct. Today, only the stone partridge and Nahan's partridge remain. These two weirdos are relics, the last survivors of a group that was once more widespread. This might sound to you like an unlikely scenario, but it's very similar to what scientists

discovered about hummingbirds. If you recall from the podcast episode I did on hummingbirds, those little buggers also originated in the old world. Then they colonized the new world, went extinct in the old world, and diversified like crazy in the New World. One piece of evidence that New World Quail didn't originate here and then fly over to Africa is that these guys can't really fly long distances. None of them are truly migratory. They hang around in the same place, more or less, all year long. They might disperse here and there within their local region after breeding, but they don't go all that far. You're not going to see a football-shaped Bobwhite or wood quail soaring high over the ocean on its short elliptical wings.

The typical home range size of a New World quail in the U.S. is less than 100 acres, or about 40 hectares. And this brings us to habitat. Where do these birds hang out? To forage, to breed, and to wage their little gang turf wars, using the weapons of song and dance. New World quails occupy a bunch of different habitats throughout north, central, and South America. The species living from southern Mexico down to Brazil tend to live in tropical forests. But elsewhere, there are species found in deserts, scrublands, grasslands, and several kinds of temperate forest. For example, Gamble's quail is a bird of the Sonoran Desert, and the Monizuma quail seems to prefer grassy slopes in the mountains, surrounded by forests of oak and

pine. Some species prefer to putter around on the edges of forests, where the trees give way to grasses and shrubs. Only Mr. Robert L. Whitehorn Jr. and his friend The Mountain Quail can tolerate cold temperatures to some extent. Otherwise, odontophorid birds are creatures of the tropics, subtropics, and other places with mild climates. In these various habitats, quails spend most of their time on the ground. The three wood partridges, including the long-tailed one, are the most likely to be seen high up in trees. But even then, they climb up into the branches, mostly just to roost at night. They come down to feed on the forest floor. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the IUCN, tells us we should be concerned about

10 of the 33 New World quail species. Four species are in the near-threatened category. These include the tawny-faced quail and, believe it or not, the northern bobwhite. Even though the Bob White is a widespread, familiar bird, its populations have been shrinking. According to Bird Life International, this species is listed as near-threatened because, quote, it has suffered moderately rapid declines in recent decades, mainly caused by habitat conversion and intensification of agriculture. End quote. Six other New World Quails are in even more urgent need of conservation.

These are listed by the IUCN as vulnerable. Birds in this category include the bearded wood partridge, black-fronted wood quail, oscillated quail, and Nahan's partridge, which you might remember is one of our little weirdo friends over there in Africa. Threats to these birds include habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, and illegal hunting. As one example, the black-fronted wood quail, Adontophores Atrophrons, has an extremely restricted range. It lives in only a few tiny patches of forest in Colombia and Venezuela. Total population estimates for the black-fronted wood quail are between 1,500 and 7,000 individuals.

Threats that are causing declines in this vulnerable species include hunting, forests being replaced by crops, and mining. What is it that New World Quails are looking for when they're scratching around in the leaf litter? The short answer is almost anything they can stuff into their cute little beaks. Odontophorids are opportunistic generalists. They eat all sorts of things. They eat all sorts of things, seeds, fruit, leaves, roots, and invertebrates. Those short curved bills with their serrated edges are just the right shape for snatching up many kinds of plants and very small animals. When foraging in the soil or litter, a quail scratches with one leg, kicks it backward, then

steps back quickly so it can actually see what goodies it might have turned up. Quail that live in the driest habitats, like Gamble's Quail, eat more seeds and fewer bugs. The Montezuma Quail, Sertonix Montezumi, and its closest relative, the oscillated quail, Certonix oscillatus, have a somewhat specialized diet. They dig with their strong legs to unearth roots, bulbs, and tubers in the pine oak forests where they live. They especially like the roots of wood sorrels. Monizuma quails also eat a lot of acorns in the dry season. New World quails switch to eating significantly more insects and other squishy or crunchy invertebrates during the breeding season. You can probably guess why. That's right,

because the birds need a lot more protein during that time of year. Females need lots of protein to make eggs. For example, female northern bobwhites ramp up their intake of invertebrates and eat four times more than males do during the breeding season. The list of predators that are happy to make a meal out of a quail is long. It seems everybody wants to sink their pointy teeth and claws into these plump little ground-dwelling birds. The behavior of relying on camouflage and stealth, then making an explosive flight as a last resort is a pretty effective way to avoid being eaten by a predator. It's also an effective way to scare the holy heck out of hapless naturalists, like me when I'm hiking through some brushy habitat. There I am bopping along without a care in the world,

coincidentally humming the Partridge family theme song, when pow! Suddenly there are small ovoid birds flapping wildly all around me in a chaotic eruption of feathers, dust, and cuteness. If I ever die from a heart attack out in the wilderness, you'll know why. It was probably witches. Alternatively, some odontophorid quails may have been involved. Death by quail. Quails, quail. Death by quail. A fitting death, some would say. Anyway, predators known to eat northern Bobwhite include snakes, raccoons, skunks, foxes, coyotes, and pretty much every other mammalian carnivore in North America. Monizuma quails have been documented being taken out by Cooper's Hawk, Northern Gosshawk, skunks, and coyotes.

Less is known about which predators terrorize New World Quails in the tropics, but my guess is that list, too, is a long one. It used to be assumed that breeding in New World Quails occurred between monogamous pairs. This may be true for some or even many of the species in this family. It's just that ornithologists don't really know for sure. A lot of our knowledge about breeding in this group of birds comes mostly from only a few well-studied species in North America. And it turns out those well-studied species don't necessarily play

by the rules of strict monogamy. California quail, for example, can pair up in several. ways. One male and one female may pair up for a season in your standard monogamous arrangement, and there's a good chance they'll pair up again the following year. But in some years, perhaps when food is really abundant, a female might mate with several males in a single season. Then she leaves each of those males to raise a brood of her chicks. This breeding system is a form of polyandry. Poly means many or multiple, and Andri refers to males. So polyandry means multiple males. The northern bobwhite was one of the species scientists had assumed was monogamous. But research

using radio tags allowed researchers to keep tabs on the movements of individual Bobwhites, to see who was actually mating with whom. It turns out that Northern Bobwhites tend to operate under a system called ambisexual polygamy. This is where both females and males raise broods with more than one partner in a single breeding season. Scientists were able to discover this behavior in Northern Bobwites because they used the radio telemetry method of tracking birds. If you want to learn about radio telemetry and a bunch of other modern tracking methods, check out my last podcast episode number 82, which was all about that topic. Anyway, it turns out, breeding is more complex in New World Quail than we used to think

back in the day. These birds tend to spend the winter or non-breeding season gathered together in covies. But these groups break up when it's time to breed in the late winter or early spring. They break up completely or into smaller covies. Males and females begin to form pairs, and this is when we see their courtship behaviors. These behaviors vary from what seems like basically nothing in birds like the Montezuma quail to ritualized vocalizations and displays in many other species. However, there are still big gaps in our knowledge about this aspect of New World quail. biology, at least for all those tropical quails running around in Central and South America. One courtship behavior common among birds in this family is called tidbidding. Like, you know,

tidbits, small tasty pieces of food. In this tidbidding behavior, a male quail drops a small piece of food in front of a female. He holds his head down, bows close to the ground, and fluffs his feathers and fans his tail. He tries to bring her attention to the tidbit of food. He does this with some special calls as well as his movements. If the female approves of the tidbit and of the male's feathery display, she'll become his special lady friend. But that tidbit better be really good, dude. Don't go striding over to your female quail of interest and offer her something like a pickled turnip, or a piece of lint-covered popcorn you found under the couch, or, or even worse, a piece of black licorish.

Yuck! If, Mr. Quayle, your tidbit is in the same category as black licorice, don't be surprised if you go home alone that night. Tidbitting behavior like this has been documented in the Northern Bob White, Mountain Quail, and the four species in the genus Calipepla, including the California Quar. Many other birds in the order Galliformes also do this, including chickens and old-world quails. The spotted wood quail, adontophores gutatus, gives us another example of courtship behavior. This bird lives in the tropical montane forests of Central America.

Scientists published the following observation of two spotted wood quails in Belize. quote, the birds were approximately one meter apart and scratching in the litter when one bird raised its body upright from a foraging stance and slowly but deliberately raised its crest three times while uttering a soft clucking sound, barely audible from our close position. The crest at full extension was fan-shaped and the orange proximal end sharply contrasted with the black spot at the distal end. Immediately following this display, what we presume was the female assumed a copulatory posture

crouching flat on her belly. End quote. So that was a bit about courtship behavior. What about territorial behaviors? From what I could find, the species in North America don't seem to be all that territorial. In the tropics, there are those street gangs of wood quail that show some territorial behavior. behavior. But there's still a lot we don't know about territoriality and many other behaviors in the tropical species of New World Quails. After courtship and mating, it's time to build a

nest and lay some eggs. You probably won't be surprised to hear that New World Quails make their nests on the ground. The nest is a simple depression lined with soft vegetation like grass and leaves. A few species, however, build slightly more elaborate nests. The monosuma quail, for example, builds a dome-shaped nest, woven from grass and leaves. The dome has a little side entrance. Some species in this family lay only a handful of eggs per clutch, three to six. But some, like the northern bobwhite, are little egg factories. Female bobwhites lay between 12 and 15 eggs per clutch. And they sometimes can lay two to three clutches in a single season. After two to four weeks of incubation, it's time for the eggs to hatch and for all hell to break

loose. Out pops a bunch of rambunctious, fuzzy baby quail, and they immediately start getting themselves into trouble. These chicks are what biologists call precocial. When they hatch, their eyes are open, they're already covered in down feathers, and they can walk and run. Quail chicks leave their nest soon after hatching. They stick close to their parents and off they go. The chicks can feed themselves right away too, but mom and dad are there to show the young where and how to find food. The adult birds make contact food calls that get the attention of the easily distracted fuzzball babies. Young quail eat almost nothing but insects and other small invertebrates

for their first four to eight weeks of life. This is because they need lots of protein to fuel the rapid growth of their cute little bones, muscles, etc. While the chicks scratch around looking for beetles and worms and whatnot, one or both of their parents will stand guard. The adult birds keep an eye out for any aerial or terrestrial predators. The chicks are often capable of short flights within just two to three weeks after hatching. They'll stay with their parents at least through their first winter.

They and their parents might join with other families to form a covey in the non-breeding season. When spring arrives, some male and juvenile birds might leave the covey that their parents belong to. They strike off on their own to find a new group. But in general, the same individual quails will reform a covey with many of the same birds from last year. And they hang out in the same area year after year. I'm guessing there's plenty of variation in these behaviors from species to species. I'm just talking broadly about the general life cycle patterns of new world quails. These birds have brief lives.

Most of them probably don't survive for more than one year. Data for some North American species suggest that the chances of an individual quail surviving from one year to the next is usually less than 30%. Some of the oldest northern Bob Whites and California quails on record are only about six years old. Not surprisingly, we know very little about. the lifespans of the more tropical quail species. But it's possible they live longer. One clue to that is that these tropical species lay fewer eggs per clutch. How is that a clue that tells us something about lifespan? Well, as a general pattern in birds, species with longer

lifespans tend to lay fewer eggs at a time. And vice versa. Short-lived birds tend to lay many eggs per clutch, and they may also produce multiple clutches per season. When I first started researching this episode, I was a little surprised at the lack of information about the family odontophority. Most of what we know about these birds comes from just a handful of well-studied species. It's clear that more research is needed to fill in the gaps of what we know about their natural history, especially for those species living in the tropical forests of Central and South America. But this still turned out to be a fairly long episode.

In the end, I found no shortage of things to say about these charismatic little birds. New World quails are beautiful, they're adorable, they have many fascinating behaviors, and they represent a wonderful branch of the avian tree of life. Thank you for listening and learning about quails with me today. I hope you had a good time. As I was making this episode, I reached the three-year anniversary of the Science of Birds podcast. Yeah, it's hard to believe it's already been that long.

It's all been a one-year. wonderful experience. This is episode 83 and there's no end in sight. My supporters on Patreon are largely responsible for making this show possible and for keeping me going for the last three years. So a huge thank you to all of my patrons. My newest patrons are Boyce Wolford and Michael B. Welcome and thanks so much for the help. If you would like to support my work, you too can become a patron. Just check out my Patreon page over at patreon.com slash science of birds. There should also be a link in the show notes on your podcast app. If you have something you'd like to share with me, just shoot me an email.

Maybe you have a comment about the podcast or you have a recommendation for what food tidbits you think work best for impressing potential mates. My recommendation would be either cheese-its or dark chocolate raisinets. I mean, those are what would work for me if I was a female quail. My email address is Ivan at Scienceofbirds.com. It might take a while for me to reply, but I do my best to get back to everyone. You can check out some photos of these New World quails and the show notes for this episode, which is number 83, on the Science of Birds website. science ofbirds.com.

This is Ivan Philipson. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Cheers.