The Common Quail (Coturnix coturnix) is Europe's only migratory gamebird — rarely seen but often heard calling from grain fields. It is tiny, only 16–18 cm long, with a wingspan of about 32–35 cm and a weight of just 70–140 grams, barely bigger than a starling. The body is round and compact with a short tail, and the plumage is yellow-brown with fine dark mottling that gives excellent camouflage in cereal crops and tall grass. A clear, creamy-white eyebrow stripe marks the head, and males often show dark throat markings. The wings are relatively long and narrow, an adaptation for migration, but the bird is extremely hard to see and is usually only glimpsed when it flushes at the last moment, flying low for a short distance before dropping back into the crop.
Its call — the so-called "quail's beat" — is a rhythmic, three-syllable and penetrating "pitt-pil-itt," delivered frequently at dusk and during the night and carrying far; since the bird itself is so hard to see, the call is in practice the only reliable way to confirm its presence. The Common Quail breeds sparsely and irregularly in southern and central Sweden, concentrated in the plains of Skåne, Öland, Gotland and Mälardalen, with the number of singing males varying hugely from year to year — from a few dozen to several hundred — and warm, dry summers producing more birds. It is the only European gamebird that is a true migrant, and Swedish birds winter in Africa and around the Mediterranean. It nests on the ground in grain fields and other tall grassland, laying a relatively large clutch of 7–12 eggs in a grass-lined scrape well hidden in vegetation; the female incubates alone for about three weeks, and the precocial chicks leave almost immediately, fledging in under three weeks. The diet is seeds and green plant matter, with protein-rich insects making up a larger share as the chicks grow.
Read about this species in Swedish →