Voice and Social Behavior of the Chukar Partridge

The Chukar Partridge (Ale&& grueca) is difficult to study in the rugged country in which it occurs in the United States. Life history studies of the Chukar in Nevada (Christensen, 1954), Washington (Galbreath and Moreland, 1953), and Utah (Phelps, 1954) have dealt mostly with habitat and food requirements but only slightly with calls and social behavior. Hume and Marshall (1880), in what is the best description of the i bird in its native range, have little to say about calls or displays. Since so many calls of the Chukar are soft and infrequent, they are best studied under penned conditions. Goodwin’s study (1953) of the closely related Red-legged Partridge (Alectmis rufa) / : has been a great help. The white chin flanked by the black V, the conspicuous dark and white vertical bars on the flanks, and the chestnut tail feathers covered with gray upper tail coverts are conspicuous plumage characters prominent in the display of both species. Many of their calls are similar in quality and the situation in which they occur. Studies of the brown leghorn chicken by Wood-Gush (1954, 1956) have been especially valuable for their descriptions and analyses of galliform behavior. Wherever possible I have used the same terminology as the aforementioned authors in describing calls and behavior patterns. This paper presents observations on the behavior of the adult Chukar Partridge both in the wild and in captivity. This account is largely descriptive with only tentative conclusions about causation and function of behavior. For a quantitative analysis of the motivation of calls and display the reader is referred to a forthcoming paper “Agonistic and Sexual Behaviour in the Chukar Partridge” (Stokes, in press). This study was made from 1955 through 1960. In 19.55 I kept three males and five females in a pen with wire sides and top measuring 40X60 feet from January through May. The floor of this pen was bare ground during winter, but it had moderate ground cover in spring. In 1956 I used 12 males and 12 females. Three males and three females were kept in the same outdoor pen as in 1955 to observe display and pair formation. The remainder were separated as to sex and kept apart from the birds in the pen. From time to time these birds were placed singly in the pen to observe the reaction of the penned birds to newcomers. In 1957 I held 16 birds in three outdoor pens measuring 30x60 feet with emphasis on nesting behavior. In 1960 most observations were of birds kept in isolation except during paired encounters between birds of the same or opposite sex. These birds were exposed to 14 hours of artificial light daily from January 15 until then end of observation in May. Paired observations of these birds began in March at a time ’ when sexual and aggressive behavior was increasing rapidly. In addition to the caged birds, I observed Chukar Partridges in the wild in northern Utah for about 40 hours. I am indebted to the Utah Department of Fish and Game for the generous supply of birds from its game farm; to Dr. Carroll I. Draper, Department of Poultry Husbandry, and Dr. Arthur D. Smith, Department of Range Management, both at Utah State University, for the use of pens and other facilities; and to H. W. Williams and Dr. Keith L. Dixon for their critical reviews of the manuscript. This project was supported in part by the Division of Research and by the Utah Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit at Utah State University. CALLS