Crested Wood Partridge

About the crested wood partridge

The crested wood partridge, also called the crested partridge, roul-roul, red-crowned wood partridge, green wood quail, or green wood partridge, is a gamebird in the pheasant family, Phasianidae, within the order Galliformes. It's the sole member of its genus, Rollulus. The species is a year-round resident of lowland rainforest across a fairly compact range: southern Burma, southern Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo.

It's a compact, rotund bird with a short tail, about 9.8 inches (25 cm) long, with males running slightly larger than females. Both sexes share a scarlet patch of bare skin around the eye and red legs, notably lacking the spur or hind toe some other galliforms carry. Beyond that, the sexes look quite different. Males are metallic green above with glossy dark blue underparts and a brownish wing panel, topped with a tall red crest, a white forehead spot, and black frontal bristles. Females are pea-green over the body, with brown wing coverts and a slate-grey head — they keep the bristles but skip the crest and the white spot. Both have an all-dark bill, and young birds look like duller versions of the adult of their own sex. The species' song is described as a mournful whistled "si-ul."

Unusually for a galliform, young crested wood partridges are fed bill-to-bill by both parents rather than pecking food up from the ground themselves — even though, like other galliforms, the chicks are precocial and mobile soon after hatching. They still roost in the nest while small, a middle ground between fully dependent and fully independent young.

Behavior and diet

Crested wood partridges are usually encountered alone or in pairs rather than in larger groups. They spend much of their time working the forest floor with their feet, probing leaf litter for fruit, seeds, and invertebrates. When something disturbs them, their first instinct is to run rather than fly; if they do take to the air, it's typically just a short burst on their rounded wings before they set back down.

Nesting is a ground affair. The nest itself is a simple scrape in the soil, lined with leaves and tucked away under a heap of leaf litter for concealment. A clutch runs five or six white eggs, incubated for 18 days. Once hatched, the chicks get an atypical amount of parental care for a galliform — both parents feed them bill-to-bill instead of leaving them to forage on their own from the start, even though the chicks are capable of some independent movement early on.

Range and habitat

The crested wood partridge's range covers lowland rainforest in southern Burma, southern Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo, where it breeds as a year-round resident rather than migrating in and out seasonally. Within that habitat, it favors the forest floor, where it forages by feel and sight for fruit, seeds, and invertebrates hidden in the leaf litter.

Habitat destruction, particularly from logging, is a recognized concern for the species across its Southeast Asian range. It appears to tolerate some habitat disturbance better than other pheasants native to the same region.

Conservation status

The crested wood partridge is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, based on a 2021 BirdLife International assessment. The main concern is habitat destruction across its Southeast Asian rainforest range, especially from logging.

It does seem somewhat more adaptable to habitat change than other Southeast Asian pheasants. The species is also listed on Appendix III of CITES, which places some controls on its trade across borders.