We have never seen a partridge in the watermeadow before, but this one turned up this morning looking very bedraggled. We wondered whether he had been displaced by Storm Pierick last night. Here, he has dried out and fluffed himself up. Red-legged partridges look very striking with their complex colouring. They can be identified by their red beak and legs.
They live in lowland scrub and farmland, eating small insects as well as seeds, leaves, and roots. They are ground-nesting birds. Their nest is just a foliage-lined scrape in the undergrowth. They prefer to run instead of fly if disturbed. In fact they are a non-native species having been introduced to the UK in the eighteenth century as a new gamebird.