King Quail

How to identify

Field marks

1. Male has a deep blue-gray neck and flanks
2. Male has a dark brown back and wings and reddish-brown underparts
3. Male has a black chin, a white band below it, and black-and-white markings below the eye
4. Legs and feet orange

Male, female and young

Female much plainer, reddish-brown overall, with only the belly paler.

Voice

Flute-like whistles, sounding like “ti-yu” or “ti-ti-yu”; gives thin, high-pitched chattering when flushed.

Where and when it's recorded

King Quail has been recorded at 189 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 19 countries and regions.

Records by month Southern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Lake Samsonvale – Golds Scrub LaneAustralia457 records
2. Lake Samsonvale – Postmans TrackAustralia306 records
3. Baruipur MarshesIndia150 records

Countries and regions with the most records

AustraliaIndiaCambodiaSingaporePhilippinesChinaSri LankaPapua New Guinea

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The king quail (Synoicus chinensis), also known as the Asian blue quail, blue-breasted quail, Chinese painted quail, button quail, or Chung-Chi, is a very small, diminutive galliform of the tribe Coturnicini in the subfamily Phasianinae. They are the smallest member in this subfamily and the family Phasianidae, as well as being the smallest and lightest member of the order Galliformes. It is quite common in aviculture worldwide, where it is sometimes referred to as the "button quail", although it is not closely related to the family of birds called buttonquails.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions