Northern Bobwhite

The northern bobwhite — known in Spanish as codorniz cotuí, codorniz de Virginia, colín de Virginia or codorniz cotuí norteña — is a bird of the family Odontophoridae. This chunky bird measures roughly 23 cm long and has a short tail; the female is smaller. The species varies from region to region; in Mexico five basic types have been identified, all conspecific and able to interbreed. The females are similar to one another, with pale brown superciliary arcs and throat. This quail lives in the central and eastern United States, and also in Cuba, Mexico and Guatemala. The species has been introduced to Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Santa Cruz Island, and to the islands of Andros and New Providence in the Bahamas. In Mexico it is distributed across the east of the country along the Gulf plain, from the Rio Grande to Tabasco. On the Pacific coast it occurs in Sonora and from Nayarit and Jalisco onwards through the Sierra Madre del Sur and as far as the state of Chiapas. On the Iberian Peninsula it has been introduced for shooting, causing conflicts with other species and with consequences that can be serious. It prefers savanna, grassland and farmland. The IUCN 2019-1 assessment classes the species as Near Threatened. It has a white meat much prized by shooters.