Quail at Tuggeranong Hyperdome car park last night

["Philip Veerman" <>]

Both Stubble & Brown Quail are in Canberra (and are not that hard to hear if not see). The former is probably more likely there and to to fit your description better. I guess it is not that unusual that one could get there by accident at night time and get a bit confused.

 

Yes of course given your story it could be an escapee from private collection but I would give that a low probability. It is hard to know. My minimal observations are that many Japanese Quail (like lots of domesticated birds) show uneven feather patterns with odd patches of white. Also most probably don't fly that well.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Tun Pin Ong [
Sent: Thursday, 3 October 2013 2:18 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] Quail at Tuggeranong Hyperdome car park last night

Hi,

Last night around 10pm I walked past the quiet car park outside of Pet's World, Tuggeranong Hyperdome and found a quail, which I think was a Stubble Quail, loitering on the tarmac. At some moment it sat motionlessly on the tarmac until I got too close trying unsuccessfully to capture a photo from my iPhone. It got startled and flew away at least 200m Southeast towards the direction of Bonython suburb.

It showed pale supercilium and strong pale streaks all over its body under street light. Either it was a female or poor street light I was not able to see the rufous throat.

Today I checked with the staff at Pet's World that they had only sold Japanese Quail sometime ago but did not lose any of them. And they had not sold any Stubble Quail so far.

Could this be an escapee from private collection or some genuine wild vagrant lost at the carpark? I had seen Stubble Quail in NSW Riverina region 2 years ago so this is not so much for my tick, but still like to know more about the quails in the wild.

Regards,

TunPin Ong