200906 - Quail

We have baby quail running around the area. You see them everywhere. Unfortunately, since our backyard has a tall fence we don’t get babies until they can fly over but my friends do. Last week I was visiting a friend when she had a family of quail come running across her patio. The babies look like walnuts (or cotton balls) with toothpick legs but they are fast and so so cute.
Another friend tells this story.
She opened her front door to go out to pick up something in the front of the house. All of a sudden these 2 quail started cussing at her. She said she had never heard such language from a bird before. She left the front door open and went into her living room and noticed a baby quail, and then she noticed several more running around the house. She and her husband tried to corral the babies and shoo them out but the babies were too fast.
Finally she thought “I’ll let mother nature take over”. So she and her husband sat down and stopped moving. Pretty soon the parents started clucking and after a short time 4 babies ran out of the laundry room and out the front door. Still they waited. And after a few more minutes several more babies ran from the another room and out the door. And Mom and Dad and the babies outside started to leave. Now my friend and her husband are getting worried. They know there is one more baby in the house and the family is leaving. Finally that one last baby runs from under the couch, out the door and chases after the family. With quail as with many other families there is always one straggler!