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The English Partridge is a medium sized game bird with a distinctive orange face (the French Partridge has a white chin and neck with a black boarder). The Partridge is pretty much a ground bird and flies with fast beating wings in short bursts, but when faced with a gun party is quite capable of increasing height to try and escape, but they rarely found in trees. They tend to group in numbers of 10 to 15 and these groups are known as Coveys and are mainly seen outside the breeding season. Once a common sight the English Partridge is in quite serious decline now and is on the RSPB red list.
The English Partridge can be found in the East and South East of the country and the Welsh boarders and flatlands in Scotland. A rotund bird 28 - 32 cm long brown back and grey flanks and chest. The belly is white and the males usually have a large horse-shoe mark on the belly.
Hens lay around 20 eggs in a ground nest, usually in the margins of a cereal field. Very convenient as they are seed eaters as well as insects. So the young (who prefer to eat insects) are often herded around the edges of a field in search of insects and bugs to eat. The Partridge is a non-migratory bird and form Coveys (flocks) outside the breeding season.
The largest threat is from man, due to a loss of breeding habitat and lack of food for the young through use of insecticides. Many farms have breeding programmes, and although they have official shoots in the shooting season the numbers outweigh those that are taken for the table and so the breeding continues to increase the otherwise declining numbers. Over the last 25 years the population has fallen by as much as 85%.
£18.70
