King Quail

The king quail (Synoicus chinensis), also known as the Asian blue quail, blue-breasted quail, Chinese painted quail, or Chung-Chi, is a very small, diminutive galliform of the tribe Coturnicini in the subfamily Phasianinae. They are the smallest member in this subfamily and the family Phasianidae, as well as being the smallest and lightest member of the order Galliformes. It is quite common in aviculture worldwide, where it is sometimes erroneously referred to as the "button quail", which is the name of an only very distantly related family of birds, the buttonquails. Its voice is a piping whistle, ti-yu or ti-ti-yu. It also gives sharp cheeps or a tir-tir-tir sound when flushed. == Description == King quail is 12–15 cm long, with a wingspan of about 25 cm long, and weighing 20–57 g. Males are distinctive, with a dark brown back and wings, dark blue-grey flanks and neck, and dark red-brown underparts; the face is patterned with a black chin with a white band just below on the upper throat, and black and white stripes below the eyes. Females are much plainer rufous-brown all over except for a paler belly. == Distribution and taxonomy == They range in the wild from…