The yellow-necked spurfowl, also known as the yellow-necked francolin, has distinctive bare skin on its throat that is bright yellow and gives it its name. Its other highly distinctive feature is bare red to orange-ish skin around its eyes and at the base of the bill.
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| Yellow neck and red patch around the eye are distinctive. |
It has a grayish-brown back streaked with white and more pale underparts with buffy streaks and dark brown on the crown of the head..
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| Photo by Esmee Tooke. |
It is found from southern Eritrea and northern Somalia south through Ethiopia and Kenya to northeastern Tanzania. We saw a group of them in Buffalo Springs National Reserve in northern Kenya. They reminded me of a covey of quail, although they are a little larger than quail. They are hunted for their meat by the natives.
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| Yellow-necked spurfowl. |
Do they fly? If so, it would give new meaning the "red-eye flight."
ReplyDeleteYeah, my recollection is that we did see them fly and they fly like quail, low to the ground and not very far.
DeleteUnlike so many other bird species, they don't seem to have a paler, plainer female version. Is that true?
ReplyDeleteI believe both male and female are yellow and red, equal opportunity flashers.
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