Red skin around the face and red legs help identify this spurfowl. Plumage varies across its range, and its diet shifts from mostly invertebrates in summer to plant matter in winter.
Among spurfowls in southern Africa, its red bill, skin around the eyes, throat, and legs are useful identification marks. Male and female plumage is similar.
Red-necked Spurfowl use the forest floor. In forests of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, cameras recorded birds singly and in pairs. Beneath tall trees, smaller trees, herbs and leaf litter form the ground-level space these birds occupy.
A study published in 2023 sampled fourteen Southern Mistbelt Forest patches from October 2020 to September 2021, covering breeding and non-breeding seasons. Camera surveys were paired with measurements of tree diversity, vegetation cover and the fraction of ground covered by leaf litter.
In the non-breeding season, greater leaf-litter cover was associated with a higher probability of Red-necked Spurfowl occupying a site. Leaves accumulating beneath the trees therefore formed part of the local setting associated with the birds’ distribution, connecting the forest canopy with its ground layer.
IUCN Red List (BirdLife listing) · Least Concern · Global
The KwaZulu-Natal study recommends retaining undisturbed forest understorey for the local bird community. Livestock grazing occurred in some protected forest patches. Leaf-litter ground cover and surrounding low vegetation are therefore relevant features of the habitat used by Red-necked Spurfowl in these forests.