Quantities of quail

I was working in the yard one day when I heard some soft peeping. I turned around and saw quantities of quail (parents and endless babies) on our porch steps.

They were heading from one side of the yard to the other, you see, and the porch was just ... in the way. So they climbed the steps, scurried across the porch, and jumped off the other side.

I think there were four adults and upwards of two dozen half-grown babies, still in the soft peeping stage. I couldn't even begin to get them all in the same photo, unfortunately.

The parent birds shepherded their offspring through the yard and out the other side.

(These are not photos of the same birds. These are separate photos of different parts of the group. As mentioned, there were quantities of quail.)

They slipped through the wire yard fence and disappeared down the slope. Just one of those trivial little interludes for which I was glad to have my camera on hand.

Miniature chickens

I've been slowly getting garden beds planted. The early birth of little Stormy shifted our focus from the garden infrastructure to the cattle infrastructure, but I'm planting seeds, mulching, and cloching with deer netting as needed. (Currently the garden is unfenced since we were laying in more garden beds.)

Anyway, the newly planted beds were neatly mulched with straw, looking very pretty and organized.

Then yesterday I went into the garden and saw a whole bunch of straw scattered on the ground outside one of the beds. This isn't the first time this has happened.

It's not wind. We haven't had any; and besides, this disorder wasn't affecting every bed, as a high wind would.

The culprits, as it turns out, are the quail. These miniature chickens love to scratch around, looking for good things to eat, and during this industrious behavior they're scratching the straw off the beds and onto the ground.

Last year I noticed they were using one of the strawberry beds for dust baths, which also is behavior shared by chickens.

So far it hasn't been a big deal. They haven't damaged anything or prevented anything from growing. Miniature chickens are just a way of life around here.

Trail of quail

Perhaps it's because I've been filling the bird feeder over the cold months, but we've had a LOT of quail hanging around over the winter.

Their favorite refuge is a pile of brush near the house. Originally we had plans to chip this pile, but instead we might keep it there. It offers refuge against both terrestrial and aerial predators for the quail as well as other birds.

The quail have hung around the "front porch" of this brush pile for months now.

The funny thing is, the quail are gathering in unprecedented numbers

The other day I looked down and saw a whole bunch of quail on the road.

The flock grew and swelled until there were dozens, maybe over 100, quail.

And then they all marched down the road as if following an order.

Yes, a veritable trail of quail.

Quail central

Since I've started filling the bird feeder on our deck (I feed only over the winter), we've become "quail central."

The greedy things will literally climb over each other, gobbling the seeds.

California quail are handsome birds. They're also very wary, keeping a watchful eye out for predators. We have goshawks around here (see here and here), and those aerial predators will make an occasional foray nearby – once, one actually swooped through the porch! – so I can't blame the quail for being cautious. (The faint green lights you see on the photo below are reflections of our Christmas tree lights.)

Do you see the reddish-brown smear in the upper-left corner of the photo below? It's a goshawk juuuust flying away from a tree opposite our porch. If I'd snapped the photo half a second sooner, the whole bird would be visible.

(Here's a photo of a juvenile goshawk I took last year.)

Interestingly, one of the quails' favorite hangouts is a pile of brush we piled nearby, waiting for the chipper. The quail have adopted it as a refuge.

At all hours of the day, you can see the birds hanging around, inside and outside.

I can't blame them. It offers superb protection against predators of both land and sky.

Still, the quail are not completely dependent on the brush pile. They will often congregate across the road in some blackberry brambles, which offers – arguably – even better protection against predators, since the brambles have thorns.

I often see coveys of quail on the road exceeding four or five dozen, more than will fit in any one photograph.

No wonder the goshawks are hanging around. The bird feeder isn't just supplying food for the quail. It's also supplying food for the goshawks. Win-win.

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.

Bit and bobs

Here are a few random bits and bobs from the last few weeks.

We have a shed in our yard we use for garden tools, etc. The doors were open on it for about a week or so. One day Don saw a robin fly in with food in its beak, and we thought, "Uh oh, robin built a nest inside." If that was the case, we'd have to keep the shed doors open until the babies fledged.

Later that same day I went to put something inside the shed and saw this:

Not a nest, but a fledgling that had made its way in.

Of course we left the shed doors open. By the next day, it was gone.

Ground squirrel.

Full moon behind a pine.

There is a single volunteer sunflower plant growing in one of the potato beds.

It's always worth examining things like this up close...

...because you never know what you might see.

And another small spider, this one on our screen door. I believe it's a young orb weaver.

I have some basil plants growing on the deck. I was going to transplant them into the garden beds, but never got around to it, so I repotted them in larger pots and they're happily growing.

However something was eating the leaves.

Aha! Found the culprit. Look how closely it blends in, color-wise. I scooped it up and dumped it over the side of the balcony.

Grasses, blooming.

Allergies, anyone?

A clump of irises growing by the side of the driveway. This photo was taken about a month ago.

In late June, I baffled to see what looked like carrots growing in the rocks next to one of the garden beds. Carrots? How?

The mystery was solved a few weeks later. Not carrots, but Queen Anne's lace, a member of the carrot family.

I know Queen Anne's lace is technically an invasive weed, but I absolutely stinkin' love it.

A very, very distant doe and her fawn.

Some quail parents herding their chicks toward the safety of some brush.

Sunrise..

...and sunset.