Strawberry craters

I have four strawberry beds in the new garden area, planted with potted runners from our old strawberry beds. Because it's fenced against cows but not deer, the beds are hooped and netted to keep hungry deer from munching the plants.

In one of the beds – just one – I kept finding mysterious craters in the dirt.

Day after day, these little craters would appear afresh. (They would more or less get destroyed every evening when I watered.)

I found no holes or tunnels, as might be expected with voles or other burrowing creatures. Nor, crucially, were the plants themselves ever harmed: they were not uprooted or eaten. What on earth was causing these little dirt craters, and why?

I received my answer one afternoon when I went into the garden and surprised a quail family inside the net, happily taking dirt baths among the strawberry plants. Evidently they had found a quail-sized chink in the netting and were making themselves at home.

When they saw me, they began a frantic effort to escape, leaving behind a few telltale feathers.

I find I don't mind. As I mentioned, they're not hurting the plants and might even be eating any insects that would. Let them enjoy their dirt baths.