Hi All again,
Here's another thread I'd like some input on. After many hours and
days sitting in the dry grass of southern Arizona I finally recorded
the main vocalizations of Montezuma quail. I have the trill display
call, the buzz call, and a distraction display by a male near his
offspring. Unfortunately, both the trill and buzz calls were made
from in tall grass and I couldn't see the birds as they called.
So the questions are:
Conventional wisdom is that the female does the trill display call
although I have been told by one observer that he watched a male sit
on the side of the road and make this call. Which is it, male or
female?
Who makes the buzz call, male or female?
BNA reports that it is very hard to observe these birds calling and
even the researchers studying the birds may not always be familiar
with their calls. It seems out of character for a female quail to do
the display and I wonder how accurate this conventional wisdom is.
It seems that to make the claim that this species deviates so much
from the quail standard, one would need to carefully document that
the female actually does the trill display. Has that study been done?
Thanks again,
Kevin
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