Appearance

22 - 32 cm. Bill red, short, robust and slightly curved. Red ring around the eye. Crown and small crest buff brown. Cheeks, neck and upper-chest bluish gray. Nape, upper-back and sides of chest striated with red. Rest of back buff, brown gray, blackish and pale gray. Chest rufous cinnamon. Feathers that cover the thighs and flanks cinnamon, mottled with gray-brown. Wing feathers reddish brown. Outer tail feathers reddish-brown. Tarsi red, short and robust. Sexes are similar in plumage, but males are larger than females. Immatures are similar to adults, but the chest is duller and the flanks are barred with brown.

Bearded Wood-Partridge is distinctive within its range, and there are few species with which it could be confused. There is limited geographic overlap with Long-tailed Wood-Partridge (Dendrortyx macroura), which the outer wing feathers that are gray brown (rather than rufous brown as in Bearded), and has a very different face pattern: the forecrown, sides of the head and neck, and nape are black, with two white lines on face. Long-tailed also tends to occur at higher elevations. Singing Quail (Dactylortyx thoracicus) is much smaller with a shorter tail shorter, and and in the male the face and throat are tawny.

The following description is based on Ridgway and Friedmann (1946):

Adult: Sexes similar. Forecrown and anterior crown buffy brown, becoming buffy brown and sepia on the rear crown. Feathers of the forecrown with pale buffy shafts that show noticeably. Feathers of the hind neck mouse gray with terminally broadening russet to chestnut shaft streaks. Back, lower back, rump, and uppertail coverts buffy brown to olive brown, tipped and subterminally banded with pale buffy to almost white, and with blackish blotches between the tips and the terminal bands. Central rectrices with a fairly narrow chestnut shaft streak, paling laterally into buffy dark, vermiculated and speckled with drab, and crossed by six to eight wavy whitish bars, each of which is broadly edged proximally and narrowly edged distally with blackish. The width of the median chestnut area successively increases on the lateral rectrices, with the outermost pair of rectrices almost entirely chestnut. Scapulars and wing coverts (except uppermost wing coverts), buffy brown to olive brown, heavily blotched with dusky black and barred irregularly with dusky black and with light pinkish cinnamon to pinkish buff, and marginally with white; uppermost wing coverts similar, but lacking the white edges, and with little blackish. Secondaries russet, edged and tipped with pinkish buff to cinnamon buff, these areas finely speckled with blackish, and the feathers crossed by eight to ten V-shaped drab bars. Primaries cinnamon russet, the outer webs barred with pale drab, and the inner webs extensively mottled and washed with drab. Lores and auriculars buffy brown. Chin and throat mouse gray. Breast bright cinnamon, paling posteriorly to cinnamon buff; feathers of sides cinnamon, edged with grayish, and splotched with black and white. Flanks and undertail coverts buffy brown to olive brown, edged with buffy to cinnamon and with large subterminal black blotches. Tibial feathering olive brown.

Juvenile: Similar to adult, but lower breast pale buffy whitish, narrowly barred with drab; center of breast pale cinnamon narrowly barred with drab; secondaries as in adult, but with much less external buffy mottling, the edges more cinnamon, darker and duller.

Downy young: Forecrown and superciliaries broadly yellow becoming suffused posteriorly with brown; center of crown dark brown; scapular area cinnamon buffy to pinkish cinnamon; spinal tract very broadly brown, paling laterally to pinkish cinnamon; wings and tibial feathers brown obscurely mottled with dusky. Chin, throat, breast, belly, and sides cream to yellow, washed on the breast with pale ochraceous.

Undescribed.

Bill, bare orbital skin, and tarsi bright red to orange red (Ridgway and Friedmann 1946, Howell and Webb 1995).

Total length: 33-35.5 mm (Howell and Webb 1995)

Linear measurements (from Ridgway and Friedmann 1946):

male (n = 7)

wing length: mean 154.8 mm (range 147-166 mm)

tail length: mean 118.9 mm (range 117-121 mm)

bill length (culmen from base): mean 21.6 mm (range 20.4-22.5 mm)

tarsus length: mean 51.8 mm (range 49.1-54 mm)

female (n = 4)

wing length: mean 150 mm (range 148-152 mm)

tail length: mean 114 mm (range 110-119 mm)

bill length (culmen from base): mean 20.6 mm (range 20.0-21.7 mm)

tarsus length: mean 46.6 mm (range 44.5-47.4 mm)

Mass: mean 432 g (range 405-459 g) (Dunning 2008)