Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, and it did just that this past weekend.
Chukie, a little hen Chukar partridge, showed up in a box at my birdie bungalow in the hands of one of my readers. Chukars are popular birds kept by the hobbyist and game bird keepers alike. Their tendency to escape, and wander in no set direction, is probably the reason that I get so many calls trying to identify a strange bird on the ground picking up far-flung seeds near someone’s feeder.
Chukie arrived at the concerned reader’s home by wandering into a neighbour’s garage. Several emails later and an hour’s drive from Fergus and Chukie arrived quite healthy, but not necessarily happy, on the doorstep of my birdie bungalow.
But not being used to a heated building, I popped her into a cage within the same unheated goat shed building that the peacocks are housed in during the winter. There she squatted, looking back at me with eyes that definitely showed failed domestication. Her position was tense, waiting to readily shoot skyward if I moved too quickly too close.
It has been years since I obtained my first covey of Chukars, but they are a bird that has not taken well to domestication. They must be cage-confined and, while young, raised up off the ground on wire to avoid disease. Nevertheless, in recent years it has gained popularity as a gourmet food.
One can identify this tightly feathered, red-legged partridge by the black band running across the forehead through the eyes, down the neck, and meeting between the white throat feathers on the upper breast. The lower breast and back are a subdued grey. The flank feathers are gray at the base with two black bands at the tips, giving them a unique false appearance of numerous bands of black bars flanking each side. The bill, like the legs and feet, are of a striking orange-red.
Dimorphism in feather colour makes it difficult for the average game bird fancier to sex them, but the trained eye can tell by both head shape and size. Failing that, the males usually have a fancy little sidestepping, look at me, dance when they feel a little amorous.
I haven’t discussed this at any length with Chukie yet, but I have the intention of snooping around to see if I can acquire a half dozen or more of her kind to make a sufficient covey. They love to sit on the ground in a semicircle or circle with their heads all facing out. The better to spot a predator if one should so be lurking about.
If I am successful in acquiring sufficient numbers, my intentions are to free range them in our back 40 goats’ pasture where the scrub apple, chokecherry, dogwood, multiple-seeding weeds, and tall grasses make an ideal habitat for them. I think Chukie would like that.
In the meantime I have placed her on a diet of 50% ordinary scratch grain and 50% high protein game bird pellets.
If you can help Chukie, in any way, find a covey of friends, don’t hesitate to email her at my address.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105