Kurrichane Buttonquail

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Kurrichane Buttonquail

Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

Kurrichane Buttonquail


Today we feature a little bird about which a lot can be said! This is a Kurrichane Buttonquail, Turnix sylvaticus. There is a lot to unpack just as to what kind of bird this is. It looks a lot like a quail, and its name says the same – but it isn't! Buttonquails, sometimes called Hemipodes, are very distantly related to quails. Quails are in the Pheasant family and order; buttonquails were soon understood to be distant from them, but it was unclear for long what they were related to. Until recently, they were classified in the Crane, Bustard and Rail order, the Gruiformes; today, studies have shown them to belong in the Shorebird and Wader order, the Charadriiformes. They're actually fairly close to seagulls! Their resemblance to quails is due to their following a similar lifestyle. What's that called again? Yes, convergent evolution! But it may actually be that all early shorebirds had this sort of build and way of life. A fossil buttonquail is known from the early Oligocene, about 30 million years ago.


Actually the buttonquail being in the wader order makes sense of another great ornithological puzzle, namely the classification of a unique Australian bird called the Plains-Wanderer. This looks very much like a buttonquail, but when analyzed genetically, it proved to be close to the Jacanas, which are indubitable waders. Now studies show that the buttonquails are 'basal' to the entire wader order. This means they're pretty much the first branch of the order to have evolved. The resemblance of the Plains-Wanderer to the buttonquails just shows that it is likely very 'primitive', or in more accurate terms, morphologically conservative.


The name 'Kurrichane' comes from a ancient settlement in South Africa, Kaditshwene (which may have come from the Tswana phrase, 'Ga se ka ditshwene!' ('What an incredible number of baboons!') It was in the region of the present-day town of Zeerust; it was abandoned in the early nineteenth century, but has lent its name to at least two present-day bird species, a thrush, and this buttonquail. Both actually occur far more widely than the locale of Kaditshwene! In fact, the Kurrichane buttonquail occurs from South Africa northwards throughout much of Africa, to southern Spain (in historical times), Arabia, and southern Asia, from Pakistan eastwards to Thailand, Vietnam and the island of Java! In other regions, it is given the name Small or Common Buttonquail. Its genus name, Turnix, comes from the Latin 'Coturnix' ('quail') and the species name means 'of the forest'. But it rarely enters forest. It is more prevalent on dry plains covered in grass or scrub, or in old farm fields.


Buttonquails are a quite homogenous group and many species are difficult to distinguish from each other. They number 17 recognized species; an eighteenth, aberrant species, the Quail Plover, completes the family. All buttonquails are primarily ground-living birds, indeed living much like quails, walking over open ground or scurrying and scampering through thick vegetation, pecking up seeds and insects. They're generally a bit smaller than true quails. Unlike quails, they do not have crops; they also don't have hind toes to their feet. They can fly, but are reluctant to do so. When feeling threatened, they will tend to skulk down and try to remain unseen; if pressed, they will fly out fast and low with whirring wings, and land in some concealed spot from where they can be very hard to find or flush again. But when people drive vehicles, buttonquails may run ahead of them in the vehicle tracks. On the other hand, when they cross open patches, they may do so at an exaggeratedly slow pace, swaying their bodies forward and backward like chameleons.


Another very unusual feature of the buttonquails is that their gender roles are reversed! My picture shows a female. The females are larger and brighter in colour than the males. The females also have enlarged tracheas, that allow them to make booming calls, astonishingly deep for the size of the birds. She inflates her entire body remarkably while she calls. The male is much more drab brown, with less of the bright russet coloration. Also, the female (in the true buttonquails but not in the quail plover) mates with several males in a season. The female does most of the calling, stakes territories, and pursues the males. She starts with one male; after mating, she makes a nest (a simple, concealed, grass-lined scrape), lays her eggs (usually four), and then leaves them to be incubated by the male alone, while she mates with another male, makes another nest, lays another four eggs, and leaves him also to tend the eggs, while going to yet another male and so on for the rest of the season. The chicks upon hatching are very well-developed; they accompany the male for a while, learning from him how to find food. They can fly at ten days, are fully independent at about a month old, and can breed at two months.


Kurrichane buttonquails are still widespread and common in Africa and Asia, but not in Europe. In fact, after much searching and none being found, the IUCN in 2021 declared the species to be extinct in Europe. This makes it the first European bird extinction since the Great Auk. The subspecies that used to be found in Europe, fortunately still survives in Morocco. It is therefore possible that it might be re-introduced to suitable habitat in southern Spain.

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