Quail Diaries: This Year, Its Super Dad!

Welcome back to our ongoing stories of the California Quail (Callipepla californica) who live in our neighborhood! Last year, we got to meet Super Mom. Well, there's a new Super in the yard, and that is: Super Dad! One of the first families to hatch-out this year was a huge group of (we think we counted) 20 chicks. A week or so after we first spotted them, I began to notice that I didn't see an adult female.

Our first question was, "Did a predator (such as a neighbor's cat or dog, a Cooper's hawk, or even a bobcat) get her?"

That seemed unlikely because the babies were still all present and unharmed (as far as we could count - its not easy to get an accurate count! The quail babies move en masse, with a sort of "flow" that makes it hard to discern one baby from the other). Usually, a predator would target the babies, which are easier prey. This did not make the "predator theory" very plausible.

We decided that she must have become gravid again, and went to lay more eggs (with another male). We have many male quail in the yard, fighting daily over the females, so this explanation made the most sense.

Overall, Super Dad has done a GREAT job! He keeps the babies moving through the yard, a behavior that most likely prevents predators from reliably finding where the vulnerable babies may be. The babies themselves have adapted well, and form a tight-knit group that follows Dad when on the move, and lays together in a cohesive unit when he's allowing them to rest. The picture on the right is Super Dad assembling the babies in a safe group near the edge of tree cover, but still in the warm sun. As you can see in the photo to the left, the babies are quite content to just lay down, preen themselves, and wait for the next command to move.

And I'll leave you with my final picture: here he is!! Super Dad!!!

With the babes content in the sun, Dad gets the good perch, calls out some territorial "chucks" and watches over his chicks. What a guy! To hear examples of his territorial call, click on this link, and scroll down to the "male aggressive call". This is also the sound the males make when the fight over the females during mating season.

Quail Diaries: The Return of Lady Coop

She's back!! Yes, making a sooner-than expected visit to our yard was a top predator of our resident California quail (Callipepla californica) covies, a female Coopers hawk (Accipiter cooperii). Usually the coops are found in our town only in the cooler months of late fall, winter, and early spring. Otherwise, they live up in the higher elevations, within deciduous and coniferous forests. We very recently had a rare monsoon rainstorm; which brought a number of the mountain birds down to forage in our yard, including a brightly colored western tanager.

Hawks have what is know as reverse sexual dimorphism, where the female of the species is larger than the male. It is hypothesized that this has been an adaptation associated with diversification of feeding and prey-capturing. Females hunt for larger birds (such as mourning doves and quail) and males hunt for smaller prey (such as sparrows and larger songbirds). This means that it is usually the female coop who is a threat to the quail.

Coops are amazing hunters and are known for their comfort with running on the ground to pursue their prey. Here's another lady, last winter, who had chased some quail into the bushes (to the right). As you can see, she's looking into the bush, ready to chase. Don't worry, our little quail friends were safe!! (This time... actually, in the winter, the coopers hawk will hunt our yard up to 4 times a day!! I suspect its that often when her hunts are unsuccessful...) After I snapped the shot, the hubby (who was waiting for my Go) ran out and chased her away.
The presence of the Lady Coop strongly affects the covey behavior of the quail. Just before her arrival each fall, the quail have massed into one huge covey that wanders the neighborhood, relaxes in the shade, and call to one another across the acres. After a couple days of her incesent chasing, they break down into small, quiet groups that hug the shade, cautiously skurrying from shelter to shelter.
This was the first time that the juvenile quail who were born this season have met their most-feared predator... and they were definitely scared. I knew she was in the yard because I heard the adults make their alarm call for 30 minutes! See, I feel guilty now because I'm trying to learn the quail calls. There are many of them and some sound alike. The alarm call sounds oddly similar to the "lets eat" call... Took me a long time until I realized that something was up in teh yard. I look out the back door, and there she is, Lady Coop, just 20 feet from my face, waiting in a low branch for an unsuspecting victim to come eat the bird seed!!
Luckily, she was only present for a couple days this time. Then the summertime temps returned and Lady Coop must have high-tailed it back to the mountain! I wonder if she is one of our regular winter residents and knew exactly to come to our ash tree? I mean, she was perched 5 feet above the exact spot where we *always* throw out bird seed. How did she know that?
And, as a final parting shot, here's a picture of the super-family I mentioned before... As part of their daily wandering and circling through the yard, they regularly cross our "stream" (we dug the drainage, flood it with a hose, and planted native wetland vegetation). The quail moms especially love to take their chicks through the stream because the tall bunch grasses provide both cover and forage for her babies. Cute!

Quail Diaries - The Legend of Super-Mom

Well, I'm a week late for the official "Mother's Day" holiday... but anyone who knows me is aware that I'm not very good with these dates... I wanted to write about our tortoises; but the quail have been so active, and I've gotten such great photos of them... we'll focus on Super Mom first. Yes, there she is to your left... Super Mom. As I had written in a previous entry, the California quail (Callipepla californica) that naturally occur in our yard are known for communal raising of their chicks - at times, a couple parents will join forces and raise their babies together. This greatly reduces predation, a big problem for both the babies and adults - quail are highly desired by the predators out there, and are constantly wary.
The quail in our yard seem to be "figuring out" this technique, and, for some reason, this mom has ended up with the babies from three (3!) families! She's got about 18 chicks following her (impossible to get a real count on 'em) and she and the dad have been leading these babies through our yard for the past couple weeks. I don't know how she ended up with all of them... somehow they imprinted on her and her chicks, not their own mom. If you look carefully at the photo here, you can see that some chicks are almost twice the size as others. Its a little tough to see; but its there... We hope momma can handle the responsibility... We hope some mommas start helping (there's a family that lost their babies to her, and are walking around with a single baby chick... why they don't pair up with Super Mom, I'm not sure...

Here's another fun photo of a different mom with her chicks (we've got about 3 or 4 families in the yard right now, never mind the counting mess that Super Mom has created). I opened up the back window-door shade at 6 this morn, and saw this very plumpy female resting in the yard. Look closely, and you'll see all her chicks scrunched in, trying to stay warm under her feathers. Cute!!! The quail used to be very difficult for me to photograph. They were scared of the camera lens (the Big Eye)... but each successive generation has adjusted and habituated, so that this mom allowed me to snap several shots.

And finally, lazy days and resting babies!! Here are 3 chicks from

Super Mom, resting in the sun. They love to lay down on their sides and stretch out their massively big feet.

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.