Quail Diaries: Our Little Chickens

The quail babies are here!! This is one of my favorite times of the year! Our neighborhood has roaming coveys (aka, groups) of California quail (Callipepla californica) that wander among the yards and vacant lots. The desert area is normally inhabited by the Gambel's quail (Callipepla gambelii), but we believe that our locality near the Sierra Nevada mountains, the eastern edge of the CA quail's range, provided a corridor for these quail to come down into our valley and settle within the residential area.

Since more houses have been built, its been a little difficult for the quail; but they seem to be adjusting and we've noticed that they are definitely better at managing fences. In past years, they would run run back and forth and back and forth at the base of the fence (quail avoid flying whenever possible, so as not to bring attention to themselves). They now seem to understand that flight is necessary and not so dangerous out here in the 'burbs. That's a good thing, because the hubby and I were wracked with angst when watching the little guys freak out at our fences (and we've got lots of fencing in our yard - to keep out rabbits, dogs, and cats).

To attract the quail into our yard, we throw out a lot of seed and also create various quail safety-zones (lots of shrubs, patches of cactus, and cover shelters made of tangles of branches - this structure especially helps to protect the quail from predatory hawks, such as Cooper's hawks (Accipiter cooperi), a winter visitor to our valley.

It is not easy to get photos of the quail. They are very timid and panicky birds. That's one of the reasons we call them "our little chickens". The other reason is their scratch-and-peck way of eating seeds. Here's a picture of a quail "feeding frenzy" last October. Fall is a great time for quail because they band up together in large groups. Last fall we were getting over 100 birds in our yard each day! As you can see, another difficulty in photographing the birds is their tendency to stay in shady spots. They do this both to avoid the heat of the desert and also to remain in relative darkness, under cover of branches; again, to avoid predator detection. Quail also have an amazing ability shown by all wild birds - a great awareness of when they are being observed, especially through a camera lens. Its pretty incredible. They are now finally becoming less fearful of when I look at them through binoculars, but the photo lens is still too much for them. I believe I was able to take this photo because there were many quail present and they were becoming habitualized to feeding in our yard. I also had the camera on a tripod and fully zoomed-in. In addition, this photo was taken before their major predator, the Cooper's hawk, had migrated down into our valley from its summer range up in the mountain forests. The quail are still rather fearless at this time of year...

This is a male California quail, strutting his stuff. See the black plume feathers on the top of his head?







Here is a female. There was a lot of competition amongst the birds for this perch.








In early spring, the covey breaks up as the males and females begin to pair up, defend territories, and create their nest. In the 6 years that multiple quail pairs have nested in our yard, we've only found a single nest. They are very secretive!!

We were unsure if we would see any babies this year, since its a pretty rough drought year; but I'm sure that the watering we do in our yard and spreading of bird seed has helped. As a result, about 2 weeks ago, we got our first glimpse of the proud parents and their babies. Happy day!

Getting photos of adult quail is hard enough. Taking a picture of mom and her babies is nearly impossible!!! I tell ya, they can see into our house, in our dark living room, and recognize a camera lens. The moment they see it, they herd the little babies into the nearest shrub. I think these parents were just so hungry, they didn't notice me at first. Soon after I took this picture, though, mom saw me and the babies were led into a shrub... You can see in this photo that there are two females. We were lucky enough to have two pairs successfully breed this year. As quail often do, these two pairs are raising the babies communally. Cornell University says that there is a higher life expectancy in adults who raise their chicks communally.

I was able to count 11 babies in the above photo. The chicks are very difficult to see because of their cryptic coloring. Here's the best photo of a baby quail I will ever be able to take. This is because, unfortunately, the little guy got stuck in one of the holes in a cinder block in our yard. The hubby found it and rescued it. I snapped a quick photo before we placed it under one of the quails' favorite shrubs and hoped and hoped that the momma would bring her babies by soon so that this little fellow could rejoin its family. By the way, I went out and filled the holes in the block with soil. One less hazard in our yard!


And I'll leave you with this picture of my cat, Zeebo, happily quail-watching along with us. You can just barely see a male quail on the edge of our porch, taunting the poor kitty.