Gray francolins are a favorite bird of mine, not for their loud and raucous call, especially early in the morning, but for their goofy behavior.
They blend in very well in dry, grassy surroundings. I often encounter them when one or more loses it’s nerve and shoots out from cover, which leaves me as startled as the francolin. Sometimes they’ll fly out, but more frequently they take off running. When this happens alongside a fence the bird will run along, pausing occasionally to probe for an escape route, with me calling after it, ‘You can fly you know.’ If it doesn’t find a hole in the fence it will eventually take off, but it’s as if they’ve all been told they can only take off 20 times in their lifetime.
The gray francolin in these photos neither ran nor flew. It stood its ground quite boldly, making sure to keep a sharp eye on me as I edged past trying not to alarm it. When I’d done so it wandered off through the grass looking quite pleased that it hadn’t used one of its 20 airborne escapes.
Graham's Island 
Nice looking bird, Graham, do they fill the niche of the turkey, I wonder?
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The francolins we have here behave similarly to the way you describe so well. Your Bold Grey Francolin has beautiful markings, and the one in the photograph is not really grey, but is definitely bold 🙂
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Frankly, I don’t know why they’re called gray francolins since the brown markings in the photos are typical of all the ones I’ve seen. Perhaps at certain times, in certain light ….
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Bird naming can seem wierd! Maybe they are greyer than even browner ones elsewhere??
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It’s paler than the other two species in Hawaii – the Erckel’s Francolin and the Black Francolin – but not more gray. Perhaps it’s named after someone called Gray.
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