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Black-breasted Button-quails are small ground-dwelling birds. Their plumage is highly cryptic and dimorphic, i.e. males and females are different. Males have a black and white mottled head, with a brown and black mottled cap, and a more coarsely black and white mottled breast and belly. Females have an almost all-black head, with some minor white mottling and a brownish back of the head. The front is much more prominently black than the males', too, the centre being darkest, with more mottling towards the sides. The rest of the plumage of both sexes is roughly equal, with a boldly streaked black, white and brown back and mottled wing coverts. From a distance the general colour appears to be brownish-grey. The irises of both sexes are pale-grey. The slightly downcurved bill is grey, while legs and feet are yellow. Juveniles resemble males, but their wing coverts are streaked, not mottled.

Quail vs. Button-quail

Although the two genera of the true quails, Coturnix, and the button-quails, Turnix, are outwardly very similar, and therefore often listed together, there are significant differences between them (which is the reason why they are in different family groups here).

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Black-breasted Button-quail is available HERE .

Black-breasted Button-quails are endemic to Australia. Their overall distribution is limited, from Hervey Bay, Inskip Point and Fraser Island in QLD southward to north-eastern NSW, to about Coffs Harbour. They live only on the eastern (seaward) side of the Great Dividing Range.

The natural habitats of Black-breasted Button-quails are rainforest and lantana thickets. However, their prime habitat is partly destroyed and largely fragmented and they are now also found in man-made plantations.

B. Hensen reports first finding a Black-breasted Button-quail at Inskip Point, QLD, in January 2013.

We have found characteristic platelets of Black-breasted Button-quails in Ravensbourne NP, near Esk, QLD, in March 2016.

M. Eaton reports first spotting Black-breasted Button-quails at Cooloola NP, QLD, in December 2017. Platelets were found at Mungoberry Vine Forest Reserve, Dundowran Beach, Hervey Bay, QLD, in May 2018. A pair of Black-breasted Button-quails was found at D'Aguilar NP, near Brisbane, QLD, in January 2023.