Miscellaneous bird notes

QUAIL. Last night I sat on the porch and counted quails into the dorm tree. I counted eight, but at least two sneaked in from the side. These days the birds I see, including these, are mostly paired up. So I guess they haven’t started their broods yet. I’m assuming they would sleep on the nest.

ROADRUNNER.  We see roadrunners pretty often on our walks around the neighborhood. The other morning, while walking alone, I encountered a very young roadrunner at the intersection of two small streets. It was comparatively small, but otherwise looked like the one in this picture, a stock photo from www.fotosearch.com. I don’t think it had encountered a human before. It started running down the street ahead of me, frequently looking over its shoulder. Whenever it seemed to think I was gaining, it speeded up. We went about a block that way. Finally it figured out that it could peel off into a driveway.

BEAUTIFUL MOCKINGBIRD! I had one in my garden this morning. It was repeatedly shaking its feathers, and it took me a moment to realize that it was a juvenile, calling to be fed (I couldn’t hear it through the closed glass door). Mockingbirds are my favorite birds (along with hummers), and I keep hoping that one or two will set up housekeeping in our yard. Maybe this guy will when he grows up. This mockingbird is from my old yard:

ORIOLES. This morning I also had a pair of orioles in my garden using the pond. I don’t know what kind they were. I believe one was a juvenile, and my best guess is Bullock’s Oriole, or possibly Scott’s Oriole. The other, which I only glimpsed for a second, was a female, maybe the mother.