[OhioMoose]

I've just returned from Curacao, Netherlands Antiles in the Southern Caribbean. I have many photos of birds from the island, and most were included in the simplified little birding book "Our Birds" by Bart A. De Boer. As a non-serious-birder, I enjoyed trying to get photos of as many of the listed birds as possible.

Here is one that was not in the book. It was on the ground, and jumped just like a quail as I walked too close. I snapped just a couple of frames of it in the tree to which it flew (pretty far away for my little 300mm lens), and they are shown below.

It was quail-sized, and doesn't seem to have the same head markings as the Crested Quail, which is listed as the only quail on the island in the more scholerly book I have on Curacao birds, "De Vogels van de Nederlands Antillen" by Dr. K. H. Voous (1955). Images I've seen of the Crested Quail have horizontal dark bars through the eye, and this criter has vertical dark bars through the eyes.

Any help on the ID?

[Chris Benesh]

Hi,

It's a Crested Bobwhite Colinus cristatus continentis, according to Restall's Birds of Northern South America. Here is an image of a similar plumaged bird:
http://www.lachuleta.net/dic/compone...encrestada.jpg

Chris

[Xenospiza]

It is a Crested Bobwhite – it has plenty of subspecies, and most bobwhites are very variable.