Pheasants and partridges | Phasianidae

Fazantachtigen | Faisanes y perdices

The largest and most varied family in the order: in many species the male carries one or more sharp spurs on the tarsus and is clearly bigger and more colourful than the cryptically marked female, with elongated tail or neck feathers and bare coloured skin on the head. Where the sexes look alike — in the smaller partridges and quails — those spurs are usually absent and the pair stays together; where they differ strongly, the female incubates alone. The nest is no more than a scraped hollow, hidden by the pattern of the sitting bird itself, and the clutch can run well into double figures. The primaries are moulted from the innermost outwards, so the bird never loses altogether what limited flying power it has.