The Chestnut-throated Partridge is a pheasant-family bird with a long crest and a white band at the end of its tail. Detailed behaviour records come from observations in Lianhuashan Nature Reserve, Gansu, China.
It has a long raised crest and a white band at the end of its dark tail. Red skin around the eye and its throat colour also help distinguish it from a close relative.
Chestnut-throated Partridges live in China’s high mountains. At Lianhuashan in Gansu they occur near the timberline, where rhododendron and willow thickets adjoin rocky slopes.
On 26 August 2002, at about 3,450 m, a disturbed female flew with loud alarm calls and landed roughly 30 m away across a slope. She climbed through thickets to a rocky crest and called towards two or three fully grown juveniles sitting quietly on a small rock.
Her repeated calling continued for about 15 minutes before the juveniles flew down the steep slope. Erect crests and a broad white tail-tip band were also recorded. Separately, one radio-tracked female moved in spring 1995 from about 2,850 m to a 3,000–3,350 m ridge, remaining there through summer.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The 2003 Lianhuashan paper identified fragmentation of conifer–rhododendron habitats around the timberline. Regional conservation can retain forest and thickets and document their extent. The tracked female’s use of a ridge through spring and summer also supports attention to habitats at different elevations.