the.com/partridge
a chubby ground bird that would rather sprint than fly anywhere serious
means a plump, short-tailed game bird of the pheasant family that favors open fields and prefers running or a low, whirring burst of flight over sustained soaring
from From Old French 'perdriz,' itself from Latin 'perdix,' borrowed from Greek 'perdix' — a name that ancient writers cheekily linked to 'perdesthai,' to break wind, supposedly evoking the loud whirring flutter the bird makes when flushed. The English form wandered a bit, the older 'partrich' eventually settling into the 'partridge' we say today.
- flight style
- explosive, loud, brief — then back to the ground
- pear tree
- the carol's lonely first gift, repeated twelve times
- ground nesters
- lay up to 20 eggs in shallow scrapes
- name origin
- Greek for the bird's whirring, farting takeoff sound
- camouflage
- mottled feathers vanish them into dirt and stubble
the lost partridge — covey of red-legged partridges hunted in la mancha, spain, central to cervantes' don quixote (1605)
grey partridge — native british game bird whose population declined 90% since 1994 due to agricultural changes