Red Spurfowl

The red spurfowl is a secretive forest bird, reddish brown and partridge-like, with a fairly long tail and bare red skin around the eye. The upperparts are brown with dark barring, the face and neck are greyer in the male, and the underside is rufous with dark markings. Both sexes have red legs with one or two spurs, or occasionally three or four, though some females have none, and both have long crown feathers that can be raised as a crest. The male of the Kerala race is all chestnut, including the head (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is endemic to India and found south of the Ganges. It is quiet by day and calls in the morning and evening, and it is often visible only for a few seconds when it flushes from the undergrowth. Birds usually forage in parties of three to five on fallen seeds, berries, molluscs and insects, and swallow grit. The breeding season is January to June, mainly before the rains, with three to five eggs laid in a scrape. SoIB 2023 rates it a Low conservation priority, with a Large range and a stable current trend (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).