Identification

28-32cm. The Grey Partridge is a compact bird, with rounded body and small, rounded head. Usually encountered as an entire flock is flushed, all at once, and with excited calls and noisy, rapid series of wingbeats and short stiff-winged glides, flies a short way low over the ground; the image caught is of grey-brown birds with rusty-red on the tail. Seen closer, this is a handsome bird, with orange-brown ‘face’ and throat, chestnut-brown flank-bars, delicately vermiculated ash-grey breast and a large horseshoe-shaped blackish-brown belly patch. Sexes similar (male ‘cleaner’, with better-marked pattern). female's belly patch smaller, less clear.

Description

The Grey Partridge is widespread, common breeder throughout Hungary. The species, however, has undergone a serious decline in population since the 1950s, even in the past decades. Breeds on agricultural areas farmed extensively, pastures, at the edge of arable land, primarily on places where it finds woody vegetation as shelter. Resident, gathers in flocks during wintertime.