Bearded Wood-Partridge Dendrortyx barbatus

Bearded Wood-Partridge is a distinctive, long-tailed forest bird with a bluish gray head and neck, brownish crown and crest, and mainly cinnamon underparts. Above, the birds are mainly brownish mottled black and buff, and the legs, bill and orbital ring are all red. This quail, endemic to eastern Mexico, currently is ranked as Vulnerable by BirdLife International, although recent surveys for the species have found it at many new localities in the last couple of decades. Nonetheless habitat fragmentation remains an ongoing threat, and many known populations are perilously small. It typically inhabits humid montane and pine–oak forest at 900–3100 m, but many populations are now restricted to vegetation along creeks and rivers. Most of our knowledge of the species’ breeding biology of Bearded Wood-Partridge comes from observations made in captivity.