A driver stops his vehicle and records how a red-legged partridge helps her young chicks cross the road

Polopos is a Spanish town and municipality located in the eastern part of the Costa Granadina region, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. There, a red-legged partridge has decided that she wants to cross the asphalt of a secondary road. And at a time when traffic is heavy. The situation becomes very risky for the almost helpless chicks.

Roads alongside nesting areas for steppe birds become particularly problematic places for broods freshly hatched from their eggs. One of the main characteristics of these precocial species—that is, they begin walking as soon as they hatch—also becomes a risk to their lives. We have witnessed the death of partridges crossing these asphalt roads.

As we can see in these images, the survival of the red-legged partridges depends on the reaction of the drivers who find themselves in these situations. The car driver stops and patiently waits for the mother to return to the chicks, which have remained motionless on the hot asphalt. They do not know how to get out of there, and they depend on the adult bird, which must risk her life and return to them to lead them back towards the countryside, as we see in the second part of this beautiful video.