First record of Blue Quail Coturnix adansonii for Swaziland

2006·1.3 MB·

by  Philip Perry

First record of Blue Quail Coturnix adansoniifor Swaziland
Philip Perry
Premiere mention de la Caille bleue Coturnix adansonii pour le Swaziland. Une Caille bleue
Coturnix adansonii male a ete capturee et tuee par un chat a Thembelihle, Mbabane, le 5 mars
2006. Ceci constitue la premiere donnee pour le Swaziland de cette espece, qui est devenue rare
enAfrique australe.
Figure 1.Adultmale Blue Quail Coturnixadansonii, Mbabane, 5 March 2006 (P. Perry)
Caillebleue Coturnixadansonii, maleadulte, Mbabane, 5 mars2006 (P. Perry)
O
n 5 March 2006, at c.06.30 am, my cat rowwhite line from the base ofthe bill to the eye.
brought a dead bird to my house, in The legs were bright orange-yellow (Fig. 1).
Mbabane’s northern Thembelihle suburb, The illustrations in Sinclair et al. (1993) and
Swaziland (26°17’S 31°08’E). Aquickglance sug- Hockey etal. (2003) are somewhat inaccurate as
gested thatitwas notone ofthe usual preyspecies theyshow the male as having a partiallybrown or
(doves, robin chats, sunbirds), but a quail or but- all-brown head and back, but these are actually
tonquail.Thebirdwasprobablycaughtin thearea dark slate blue. The former work also does not
belowmyhousewhere there is asmallvalleylead- show the white line from the bill to the eye. The
ing to a stream and a small relict pocket ofdamp illustration in Urban etal. (1986) is more accurate
montane grassland (altitude c.1,130 m) surround- in these respects.
ed by suburban housing and alien trees (pines This record is the first for Swaziland: the
Pinussp. and eucalypts Eucalyptussp.). species is not mentioned for the country by
Reference to field guides (Sinclair etal. 1993, Hockey et al. (2005), nor does it feature on
Hockeyetal. 2003) identified the bird as an adult Swaziland’s most recent checklist, published
male Blue Quail Coturnix adansonii. The entire online in January 2006 (Monadjem 2006). Blue
bodywas a dark slate blue, with distinctive chest- Quail is a rare summer visitor to southern Africa.
nutwing-patches andflanks (which distinguish C. The most recent record for SouthAfrica included
adansonii from the Asian Blue-breasted Quail C. in Hockey etal. (2005) is ofa bird found dead in
chinensis with which it is sometimes considered Durban in December 1973, but since then amale
conspecific). It had a well-defined, broad black was observed in the northern Kruger National
anchor-like marking on awhite throat and a nar- Park, near Shingwedzi, on 11 April 2004 (Demey
FirstrecordofBlue QuailforSwaziland:Perry BullABCVol13No2(2006)-215
2004). The nearest record of this species to Hockey, P. A. R., Dean, W. R. J. & Ryan, P. G. 2005.
Mbabane is a specimen collected in Manhi^a Roberts Birds ofSouthernAfica. Seventh edn. Cape
(25°24’S 32°48’E), c.30 km north of Maputo, Town: Trustees of the John Voelcker Bird Book
southern Mozambique (Clancey 1996). Fund.
Monadjem, A. 2006. List of the birds of Swaziland.
Acknowledgements www.naturalhistorysociety.org.sz/Birds.htm
I thankDrAraMonadjem and Ron Demeyfortheir Sinclair, I., Hockey, P.A. R. &Tarboton,W. 1993. Sasol
useful comments on a draft ofthis note. BirdsofSouthernAfica. CapeTown: Struik.
&
Urban, E. K., Fry, C. H. Keith, S. (eds.) 1986. The
References BirdsofAfica. Vol. 2. London,UK:AcademicPress.
Clancey, P. A. 1996. TheBirdsofSouthernMozambique. PO Box 5141, Mbabane, HI00, Swaziland. E-mail:
Westville, KwaZulu-Natal: African Bird Book [email protected]
Publishing.
Demey, R. 2004. Recent Reports. Bull. ABC 11: Received 18 April 2006; revision accepted 23 April
2006
168-182.
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