GREY PARTRIDGE

Our native partridges have declined greatly in recent years and can be tricky birds to see, being comfortably outnumbered by the imported and ‘released’ or ‘restocked’ non-native Redlegged Partridge. But Grey Partridges are much ‘better’ birds, subtly marked and in grey brown and orange and with a lovely rasping call, most often heard in the crepuscular hours. They are birds of lowland arable farmland and grassland, usually found in pairs or small coveys of up to a dozen or so birds.