Snow Partridge

Lerwa lerwa (Hodgson, 1833)

35 cmLength567 gWeight

This bird of alpine meadows and scree has a black head and neck with fine white stripes, and a red bill and legs and feet.

Busiest months: May · Most records: China, India

Least Concern

How to identify

Field marks

Head and neck black with fine white stripes
Bill and legs and feet red
Rufous stripes on the belly and both wings

Where and when it's recorded

Snow Partridge has been recorded at 12 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 2 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

Balang Shan [General Area]China107 records
Balang Shan PassChina94 records
Balang Shan – Tunnel AreaChina28 records

More places

Balang Shan – SummitChina27 records
Xuebaoding NNRChina7 records
Wolong Giant Panda Museum and ReserveChina6 records
Gyirong – Holy Lake & Mountain PassChina3 records
SandaoqiaoChina2 records
Dengsheng ValleyChina2 records
Munsyari – Bheema WodeyarIndia1 record

Countries and regions with the most records

China India

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 snow partridge (Lerwa lerwa) is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae found widely distributed across the high-altitude Himalayan regions of Pakistan, China, India and Nepal. It is the only species within its genus, and is thought to be the most basal member of the "erectile clade" of the subfamily Phasianinae. The species is found in alpine pastures and open hillside above the treeline but not in as bare rocky terrain as the Himalayan snowcock and is not as wary as that species.

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