3 Reasons to love the Sonoran Desert in Spring

I love late spring in the Sonoran Desert. There is so much beauty now. Here are three things in particular that I look forward to from year to year, and cherish every second that they are here:

1. Palo Verde trees in bloom. Throughout the city of Tucson and in the surrounding desert, everywhere you look there is a sea of yellow blossoms.

2. White-winged doves on saguaros. The beautiful white-winged dove spends the winter in Mexico, then flies up here in springtime to feed on saguaro blossoms and fruit. The most iconic image of the Sonoran desert is a white-winged dove atop a saguaro. (In this photo the dove is accompanied by a Gila woodpecker and a bee.)

3. Baby Gambel’s quail. These adorable little guys start showing up in April and provide continuing entertainment and beauty well into summer.

 

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Quail Update—Climbing the tree to roost

This is a promised followup to my earlier post about the quail family roosting in my olive tree. It was just a few days ago, and I observed that the juveniles in this very large family lined up and climbed the tree via a large sloping branch.

Last night I finally got a video, but the juveniles have grown so much that many of them are flying up to roost. The light is poor here, but you can still see four climbing, and one flying, then climbing.

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A Quiet Rove and Quail Update

It’s hot and humid. There has been enough rain at the Park (though none so far at my house) that everything is growing like crazy. This morning two different people pointed out that “it’s a jungle out there.”  Here are some shots of the lush Sundial area:

The pink flowers are rain lilies. The vaguely obscene-looking white plant is a currently non-blooming African import.

Below is a picture shot through the main gallery window, showing my favorite little grotto with statues of javelina. I saw four real javelina this morning, two adults and two juveniles. They were much bigger than these little representations.

Quail update: There are still several families of quail around the house, eating at my quail block, drinking from the pond, and roosting in our many trees. One family in particular, whom I have mentioned before, has around ten fairly mature offspring (college age). Over the last few weeks I’ve watched them go to roost in the old olive trees on the west side of the house. Some of them fly into the trees, but most line up on one of the trunks, which rises at a slant, and walk up it into the higher branches. The line is not always orderly, and there seems to be a bit of squabbling at the top over who is going to sleep where.

The olive tree roost. The quail mostly climb up the right-most slanting branch.

Also, yesterday afternoon I spotted what seems to be a lone juvenile quail—high school age, a bird version of Youth On Their Own. She (I think it’s a female) was sheltering from the sun under the pyracantha bush in front of the house, but I just saw her again—or a very similar quail of the same age—out by the quail block, all alone but proceeding with confidence as if she is sure what she is doing.

How did she come to be alone? I can guess only that she either lost the rest of her family in some sort of catastrophe, or got left behind at some point. She seems to be doing well, and I hope she makes it through the rest of the summer. 

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Quail census

Hooray, hooray, it’s finally hot! Really hot! And that means… baby quail time in the Sonoran desert. Other people dread June, but I look forward to it. For some reason known only to Nature, the majority of baby quails around here are hatched during the hottest, driest part of the year.

The babies don’t mind, of course, because extreme heat is all they know. I’m wondering if this behavior evolved to make sure that any young quail who lasted till the end of the summer were REALLY fit.

Mr. and Mrs. Gambel’s quail

The beautiful birds I am talking about are Gambel’s quail, small ground-dwellers who live in the deserts of southwestern Arizona and northwestern Mexico. They hang out in large flocks, called coveys, most of the year, but in late spring they start to pair off, and once they’ve got families going they become very hostile to each other.

The “dorm” tree where quail roost in the front of my house.

I became obsessed with Gambel’s quail shortly after we moved to our new home in the desert, eight years ago. They roosted around the property, and particularly in a Meyer’s lemon tree next to our front door. I called it the dorm tree, and watched the quail go to roost for about an hour every night for a couple of years. During the day I observed them out in my bird garden, where I keep a quail block. Nothing they did was too small to escape my attention. I began to think of myself as the Jane Goodall of quails.

Quail eggs

I still keep track of the new families. Here is what we have right now: a family of three half-grown chicks; a second family that started out with twelve little fuzzballs, and now is down to eight sixth-graders; a new family of five very little chicks—nursery school age, I would guess--and another family of three first-grade chicks. I expect to see more new families every day or so from now till the end of the month.

  Handsome papa quail keeping guard while his family feeds

The father of the largest family is very aggressive. When they are fighting or competing for females, male quails jump up and bump chests, much like NBA basketball players. A few days ago I saw this particular father lower his head to the ground and charge another quail like a bull. Sometimes he spreads his wings and tail like a turkey and simply runs at a foe. Today I watched him chase away white-winged doves, rabbits, squirrels, and innumerable other quails. Some of his offspring have begun to imitate him, charging at sparrow babies and apparently scaring the heck out of them.

There are more stories about quail than anything else in this blog. Here are some of my favorites:

A quail explosion (caused by a hawk)

The sad story of an abandoned quail baby

A post with photos of teeny-tiny babies on my porch

And finally, a video of teeny babies and their mama, also on the porch

If all that isn’t enough quail-ness for you, just search the blog for dozens more quail posts. I will update the quail census from time to time during the Blogathon.

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Quail and Mockingbird Notes

Long-time readers of these posts—and anyone who knows me personally—knows that I’m fascinated by bird behavior. I’ve been closely watching backyard birds for more than twenty years, and every day I see something new.

Just now I’ve been watching quail at the quail block in my bird garden. We are at the height of baby-quail season, and there are several families, with chicks of all different ages. Some of the families are quite large: there’s a group with eight or nine kindergarteners (I’m thinking these might be the same guys I videotaped in my previous post). There are several families with high-school age and even older chicks—not much smaller than the parents. The largest such group that I’ve been able to count had seven adolescents, though most older groups have two to five surviving offspring..

I should really install one of those “take-a-number” machines; the families take turns, waiting for the previous family to finish before coming to the quail block. They are sometimes lined up just outside the fence. Whenever a solitary quail or an overeager youngster tries to join the party before the previous group has left, there is a lot of squawking and running at the intruder. It is very fun to watch.

                                  

For another view of bird pecking order and sharing (or not) of resources, check out this discussion of a possessive mockingbird at my previous home.

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Quail Update

I haven’t posted a quail update in quite some time, though I am as obsessed with these beautiful birds as ever. A few weeks ago someone at the Park commented that it was a poor quail year, with very few babies. This person does not spend the summer in Tucson. While some broods appear as early as late April, the majority of chicks are hatched once the weather gets really hot (see my comment on quail babies in an earlier post).

This year is a banner year for quail. Families of all sizes, with babies of all ages, are everywhere—in my yard, in my neighborhood, at Tohono Chul Park. Several broods of chicks are already mature looking, though not as large as their parents. Others are recently out of the egg. One interesting group of six are what I think of as teenagers—and they are on their own with no adults. They always hang together, and I haven’t seen them enough to tell if one of them acts as the leader.

This family group with ten very young chicks (I’m guessing no more than a couple of days old) showed up in my back yard bird garden yesterday afternoon. It was VERY hot, so they tried the shade of the porch.

                                            

Ten Gambel’s quail chicks and their parents.

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Quail Tales

We are now in the heart of dry summer, the time of year when it is blisteringly hot with no clouds anywhere, and the time when the entire desert seems alive with young Gambel’s quail, ranging in age from newly-hatched champagne corks to sparrow-sized teenagers.

I love watching these little guys, and each family group I see adds to my store of information on quail behavior. Several large family groups have visited my backyard bird pond in the last week. The largest group had at least fifteen chicks, but counting them exactly was like trying to count the individual particles in a microscopic view of Brownian motion.

                            Adult male Gambel’s quail

Quail Tale 1: Yesterday a family with six or seven very young chicks came tumbling into the garden through the chain-link fence. The parents easily crossed the pond, stepping on rocks that stick up out of the water. Most of the chicks easily followed, except for two who, reaching the largest rock in the pond, did a sudden double-take and looked at the vast expanse (maybe three inches)  of water they must cross. They both stood on the rock like little kids on a diving board, clearly getting up their courage to jump. Finally one tried—and fell into the water. It clambered back on the rock, shook itself off, and this time used its wings to assist. Its brother or sister followed soon after.

Quail Tale 2: The other afternoon I saw a group of five teenage quails (about the size of the ones in the video below) in the front yard. There were no adults with them as they pecked at something under the pyracantha bush. A pair of white-winged doves approached, interested in whatever the quails were eating. All of the quails immediately attacked the much-larger doves with their beaks, running at them and eventually driving them off. They acted like a gang of teenage bullies, but I think maybe they are on their own and have to hang tough to survive.

Quail in Sundial Plaza at Tohono Chul Park

Quail Tale 3: This is a video from Tohono Chul Park yesterday morning. These youngsters are what I consider high-school age. They were gathered beneath a seed feeder in the Sundial Plaza. The biggest one, with the comma-shaped topknot, is the father.

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Is Anthropomorphism Really a Bad Thing?

I sometimes say that “anthropomorphism is the last refuge of vivisectionists.” Many people--not just scientists--use the term anthropomorphism (attributing human qualities to nonhumans) pejoratively,  as an excuse to ridicule and thus minimize the concerns of those of us who have empathy for other creatures. Many also use it to suppress their own natural empathy; to distance themselves from things they do that cause suffering to laboratory or food animals.

I believe that feelings of anthropomorphism are innate and natural.  Even small children recognize that animals have feelings. This belief is often called unscientific, yet if you believe in evolution, how can you maintain that emotions appeared full-blown in humans without first evolving from other animals? It may be sentimental to care about the feelings of animals, but I refuse to view sentiment as a bad thing.

Even the most hardened “rationalist” would agree that animals demonstrably experience fear and pain; but I believe they possess a much broader spectrum of feelings as well. I believe that the higher animals, mammals and birds, experience, in their own way, love,  joy, and wonder. It would not surprise me to learn someday that primitive versions of these feelings exist also in reptiles and fish.

All of this is by way of explaining why I will continue to write about critters in this journal from an anthropomorphic point of view, sometimes putting words in their mouths or beaks. Of course I do not believe these creatures see the world exactly as I do, and in these dialogues I’m often joking. But my joking is based on close observation of what I see the animals doing.

                                                                 

Take baby Gambel’s quail. They are among my favorites of the desert’s warm-weather creatures. They emerge from the egg ready to roll, and they follow their parents with what can only be described as enthusiasm.These little puffballs rush into new adventures evincing curiosity and excitement about everything they encounter.

Baby quail  hatch in the hottest, driest part of the summer. All the other birds move slowly in the heat, fluttering their throats (gular flutter) and holding their wings out from their bodies to cool down. No matter how hot it gets the baby quails are undaunted, cheerfully following their parents over blisteringly hot rocks in search of food. I imagine an internal dialogue something like this: “It’s so hot here I think I have been born into hell! And it is wonderful! Oh, how lucky I am to be here!”

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New Focus

I haven’t been posting here often because so many of my nature observations are now made at Tohono Chul Park, where I’m a docent. I have decided to change the focus of my blog, and include what I see and hear at TCP.
(This beautiful male Gambel’s quail was photographed at the Park.)
Quick quail update: we regularly have more quail than I can count roosting in the front yard now.  Literally dozens. They fill the dorm tree, the pyracantha bush, and the bougainvillea, though since we’re having a hard freeze tonight the bougainvillea may no longer be a suitable place to bunk.
 
Today in the Park it was very cold, but I got to see a snake anyway (a day without snakes is like a day without sunshine). One of the volunteers couldn’t access his water valve box because a juvenile rattlesnake was brumating in it. This may have been one of the rattlers that hatched underneath our organpipe cactus in July (see above). Our herpetologist, Ed, asked that the young diamondback be left alone till Wednesday, when the night temps will be considerably warmer.
Last week one of the grounds crew caught a juvenile black-headed grosbeak with a broken wing. She was going to take it to wildlife rehab, but someone let it go. I heard today that it had been seen in a particular part of the Park, eating chiles and caterpillars (yum!). Then, before I left this morning, I saw it, in what looked like very good, safe habitat, hopping around. I hope it finds a warm place to sleep.

My Shade Garden (and quail update)

I have added some beautiful colored pots to my shade garden, containing only hibiscus, Chaparral sage, and chiltepin, all of which I’m pretty sure will live here. Outside the garden, life continues with the quails.
This was a very good year for them—many families are working on their second brood. Some of the large families are nearly intact, with near-adult chicks now. It’s quite amazing to see so many huge birds in such a small space.
A couple of days ago a largish family of high-school age chicks (6 or 8) was feeding, when another similar family approached from the west. Most of the first family cleared out except for two chicks who continued feeding, perhaps hoping no one would notice. Father #2 did notice, and chased those little chicks, one at a time, all over the garden until they were able to escape through the chain-link fence.
I can’t help but smile when I see quails, here or out on my walks. I love those little guys!

Major quail update

Wish I had newer quail photos. Oh, well.  A quick update. First, in the backyard, I have several families, not sure how many, ranging in size from 3 chicks to 15+. The chicks in the large family are probably junior high age by now. It’s amazing to me that the parents have managed to raise and protect so many. I’m assuming this is the family that started out with around 2 dozen hatchlings a few weeks ago.
In the front yard, my dorm tree has turned into a sort of bird concentration camp. I swear I don’t know how so many birds manage to sleep in the same fairly small space. A whole bunch of little birds—I think finches and sparrows, and some young cactus wrens, occupy the top branches. Then the quail come. One quail family, with six kids in high school, come every evening just before sunset. The chicks still aren’t very good at flying into the tree and actually landing in the branch they’re aiming for, but they all get it done. I’ve seen a couple of other lone adult birds go up there too. I haven’t spent enough time to know if there are others or not. Between the quail and the songbirds, the racket is quite impressive.

Just across the driveway, in one of the palo verdes, a family (?) of whitewings are nesting. I think it’s the mom and the two chicks she just fledged, plus another dove—maybe the father or her bff.

Quail update

I’ve been spending more time looking at nature at Tohono Chul Park than in my own backyard. But I am trying to keep an eye on the quail. There are still some roosting in the dorm tree out front, but I think most of them are with their young families.
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen too many families, either here, or while out walking in the neighborhood, or in the Park. I don’t know if numbers are down or if, like everything else, quail baby season was somewhat delayed this year.
I have 1-3 families with 4-6 chicks each. I’m not sure. None of them spends much time at the quail block, though I’ve seen them drinking from the pond in the back. Above is  a picture of a quail couple I saw at TCP.