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GrasslandScrapeMedium · 61 g
ID tip
The Madagascar buttonquail is a stocky bird with a small head and short legs and tail. Both sexes are cryptically coloured; the male has a light brown head with black and white streaking and mottling, and a greyish-brown back and wings with fine dark barring and pale-edged feathers, the barring on the outer scapulars being bolder. The tail is greyish-brown with fine barring. The chin and throat are whitish, the breast cinnamon-buff with dark barring and the belly whitish. The bill is bluish-grey, the irises white or pale grey and the legs greyish. The female is more brightly coloured.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
When to see the Madagascar Buttonquail
One bar for each month. Filled bars are the 6 months with records; pale bars are months with none. The wide bar is October, the month with the most records.
Where to see the Madagascar Buttonquail
The map shades 2 countries with regular records, and 1 more in a lighter tone where the bird turns up only as a stray. Everything unshaded has no records. Countries are listed below the map.
Recorded as a rare visitor in Mauritius.
About the Madagascar Buttonquail
The Madagascar buttonquail or Madagascan buttonquail is a species of bird in the buttonquail family, Turnicidae, that is endemic to Madagascar and a few small islands nearby. It is a ground-dwelling species with an unusual breeding biology in which the sexual dimorphism is reversed, with female being more brightly coloured than the male and it is the male that incubates the eggs and mainly cares for the young.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Easily confused with
Red-chested ButtonquailTurnix pyrrhothoraxAdult red-chested buttonquails are 12–16 cm long with males weighing 27-46 g and females 31-83 g.
Red-backed ButtonquailTurnix maculosusThe red-backed buttonquail is a small stocky bird with round-tipped wings and a short tail.
Black-breasted ButtonquailTurnix melanogasterThe black-breasted buttonquail is a plump quail-shaped bird with predominantly marbled black, rufous and pale brown plumage, marked prominently with white spots and stripes, white eyes, a grey bill and yellowish feet.
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