The common buttonquail resembles the common quail, it has streaked sandy brown upperparts, buff underparts with black flank markings, and a plain face. In flight, a whitish wingbar contrasts with the grey wing.
By the meteorological calendar, winter always starts on 1 December. The seasons are defined as Spring (March, April, May), Summer (June, July, August), Autumn (September, October, November) and Winter (December, January, February).
Winter solstice is 21st/22nd December when the sun is at it's weakest. However, due to seasonal lag this is still in the first third of winter generally (look at seasonal lag on wikipedia) and is not the middle of winter at all for that reason. Calendar winter also begins on the solstice. However, overall it starts to feel like winter in late November.