Linda's Quail

For the past 10 days or so, Linda has been nesting. Actually, Linda has been doing everything she can to draw quail to our backyard. She loves to listen to their calls and always laughs as they run across streets, their little legs spinning like a Peanuts cartoon character would. My wife has liberally distributed bird food designed to attract quail. She has even placed a little lid out by the food in which water collects. Our backyard has become quail nirvana.

The problem is getting those cute little things to find that our yard is their bird utopia.

As I worked on a housing project (check out the next blog post for the specifics) I noticed one lone male quail intently watching me work. This silly bird would stand on top of the fence and stare at me as I went about installing new windows. When I walked out to the front, he would walk along the fence to the front yard and watch me. While in the backyard, I called Linda out and told her about this quail's strange attraction to home improvements.


We watched as the quail watched.  After a bit, Linda said that she thought this quail was the one she had spotted a couple of days earlier hanging around on our neighbor's roof. At this point, Linda started calling this bird Quincy.

We were both amazed and intrigued at how comfortable Quincy seemed to be as he sat and watched us.

Our work took us inside the house and after a few minutes Linda called me over and pointed out the window. There was Quincy on the fence and huddled below on the grass was a very puffy female quail. As we watched, we could see movement underneath her. She was hiding six ping-pong sized babies under her feathers!

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching this little family feed in our backyard. We figured that they had a nest somewhere near because the chicks were so small.

The past two days we have kept a close eye on them. They move about our yard and sometimes venture out into the front area. I had to chase a cat away yesterday; it was a close call.

We will continue to watch them and hope they all grow up happy and healthy!