Hungarian Partridge

Hungarian Partridge 

(Perdix perdix), European gray partridge, a bird of the family Phasianidae of the order Galli-formes. The body is about 35 cm long. The male reaches a weight of 500 g, and the female 350 g. The gray plumage is marked by dark, transverse speckling. There are brown stripes on the sides and a horseshoe-shaped brown patch on the abdomen. The coloration of the females is more subdued than that of the males.

The Hungarian partridge is distributed in Europe and Western Asia. In the USSR it is present from the western borders to Western Siberia and Kazakhstan. The bird lives in fields and bushy steppes and meadows; it sometimes is found near field-protecting forest strips. Nesting is on the ground. A clutch contains 12 to 20 eggs, which are incubated by both the female and the male for 24 or 25 days. Both parents raise the young. The Hungarian partridge feeds on seeds, plant shoots, and insects (particularly certain pests of field crops). The bird is a popular game bird and is often raised for this purpose. The related species P. dauricae, which is distributed from Kazakhstan through southern Siberia to the Primor’e, is raised as a game bird on farms outside Moscow and in other regions.