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RFI: Brown Quail south of Auckland

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2018 8:22 am
by RussCannings
Hi all,

While I'm aware of the handful of Brown Quail records from Miranda in recent years and the bird Tim flushed near Matata a wee while ago, I'm wondering if anyone can shed more light on the continued presence of Brown Quail elsewhere in its southern/former North Island range. The most updated Heather & Robertson guide still shows them occurring from Mokau/Napier north while Scofield/Stephenson take a more conservative approach displaying isolated (but still widespread) populations in the Coromandel, Rotorua, and East Cape regions (this appears to be based on atlas data which wrapped up in 2004). Does anyone know how robust any of these populations are or are these range maps based on one-off incidental encounters?

Over the past few years I've tried a lot of playback and dawn/dusk point counts in all these area in what I seem to be suitable habitat--not a single Brownie yet. Hoping to get into some more back country around the East Cape and Hawkes Bay again this summer so if anyone has any leads on where these birds are, that would be appreciated. This also includes any known Brown Quail sites on the Coromandel or Bay of Plenty area.

Also interested in California Quail in the Gisborne District if anyone knows about them.

Thanks for humouring me (I assure you I'm interested in natives too!) :)

Russ C
Morrinsville, NZ

Re: RFI: Brown Quail south of Auckland

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2018 8:45 am
by Davidthomas
We had atleast one bird present on our Farm in Morrinsville as it had an unsuccessful nesting attempt probably 2008/2009? Never saw it again once the nest failed however.

Re: RFI: Brown Quail south of Auckland

Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2019 2:13 pm
by les
my uncle had a dairy farm on the corner of the thames paeroa main rd and maratoto valley rd.There was a good sized flock that used to frequent the farm along the barberry hedgerows.mind you this was a fair while ago.

Re: RFI: Brown Quail south of Auckland

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2019 8:11 am
by john b
Haven't seen a brown quail in Hawke's Bay for decades. A few years ago I saw and photographed them on wale Island.

Re: RFI: Brown Quail south of Auckland

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2019 12:40 pm
by David Riddell
As chance would have it I was speaking to a friend a few weeks ago who mentioned that another friend of his had seen a brown quail near his house on the eastern end of Powells Rd, just beyond the new Hamilton Bypass expressway works. I've just given the guy a call and he seems fairly credible, an ex-hunter who's very familiar with hen pheasants, California quail and other gamebirds, and he saw it from as close as about 7 metres, through binoculars. He googled images of NZ quail and also compared it to the picture in the Reader's Digest book, and he's very confident that's what it was. It hung around for about a week, about 6 weeks ago, but he hasn't seen it since. He says he'll give me a call if it turns up again, so I'll report back if there are any developments.