Overview
The species is smaller in size than the painted button-quail. Viewed from behind, red-chested buttonquail look uniformly pale grey across the upper-wings and back. Side-on, the rufous wash on the upper-parts of the red-chested buttonquail is obvious. From close range its thick blue-grey beak, pink legs and feet, and pale eyes can be seen. Females are brighter than males, with rufous of underparts brighter and extending over throat to sides of head, and narrower and denser barring on flanks that rarely extend onto breast as scalloping. Juveniles are smaller, darker above with white streaks and dark barring, bold white spots on wing-coverts, underparts white with rufous-brown gorget and upper breast scalloped. The red-chested buttonquail is more commonly sighted in woodland habitats, than grassland habitats. When disturbed it scuttles through the grass or flies low with whirring wings often showing its white flanks before it drops to cover. The species generally prefers to stay close to the ground and avoids flying.
Taxonomy
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Bird
- Family
- Turnicidae
- Genus
- Turnix
- Species
- pyrrhothorax
Habitat
The species' preferred habitat is in dense grasslands, and open, grassy, woodland of Acacia (Fabaceae), River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) and Black box (E. largiflorens) or Melaleuca (Myrtaceae), but also in crops and weedy fields with dense ground cover, and from coastal plains. They occur between sea level and 1000m above sea level.
Diet
Seeds and insects.
Behavior
They glean and scratch in leaf litter, while rotating on the spot by pivoting on one foot and raking with the other. Occasionally pecking at the ground, which can sometimes be detected in dry periods by the small puffs of dust they cause while making the platelets. They have been recorded feeding alone, in pairs or small groups of up to five. The species breeds within tussock grasslands, spinifex or Melaleuca woodland, pastures of native grass, standing crops and stubble. The red-chested buttonquails are solitary breeders and females are sequentially polyandrous. The female usually constructs the nest and it is depression lined with grass, hooked, and shelter by grass tussock. Eggs are laid in February–July/September in the north, and September–February in the south. Usually four white eggs with chestnut-brown markings are laid at one- or two-day intervals. Incubation lasts 13–18 days from completion of clutch. Males incubate and care for chicks alone. Chicks leave the nest precocial and nidfugous. They are grey-brown with dark and pale dorsal stripes. They reach adult size in 6–8 weeks and adult-like plumage at 2–3 months. They reach sexual maturity at 6 months.
Hunting
Hunted indigenously.
Conservation Status
Listed as Least Concern by IUCN.