Occurrence of Common Quail Coturnix coturnix eggs in Red‐legged Partridge Alectoris rufa nests

Abstract

Capsule We present the first description of interspecific nest parasitism in Common Quail. Incidence was low; only two nests contained common quail eggs out of 82 Red‐legged Partridges nests.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are very thankful to all game managers and hunting societies’ presidents who kindly allowed us to work on their game estates. We thank N. Sumozas for help with the fieldwork in 2007. We also thank two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. During this study F. Casas received support from a pre‐doctoral grant of the Junta de Comunidades de Castilla La Mancha (JCCM). This work also received financial support from the research projects ‘Bases cientíFICAS preliminares para un plan de conservacióN de la perdiz roja en Castilla‐La Mancha’ of the ConsejeríA de Agricultura y Medio Ambiente de la JCCM (Junta de Comunidades de Castilla‐La Mancha), and CYCIT projects MCYT‐REN200307851/GLO and CGL2004‐02568/BOS. Francois Mougeot was supported by a NERC advanced fellowship, a Grant from the Ministerio de EducacióN y Ciencia, Spain (CGL 2006‐11823) and from the JCCM, Spain (PAI06‐0112).