One Of The Everyday Challenges Faced By Urban Wildlife As Shown Through The Eyes Of A California Quail

Even though I love to visit and photograph birds on nature preserves like the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, finding and photographing wildlife in the backyard will, without question, always take the top spot in my heart.

There is just something so heartwarming, yet so unexplainable, that comes from walking out the door and seeing a songbird, or maybe even a monarch butterfly, for example, just a few yards away perched on a bush or flower you planted for the sole purpose of supporting their very existence.

A perfect example of this occurred about 5 years ago while spending a peaceful morning on the porch with my elderly mother when our conversation was unavoidably interrupted by what I would refer to as, for lack of a better term, I suppose, intense chaotic high-pitched chatter.

Luckily, I was well prepared for the unique situation that was starting to unfold before me with a camera at the ready from trying to photograph swallowtail butterflies that were patrolling my mom’s yard earlier that morning so I have actual images from the situation to help tell the story.

After a quick investigation of the situation, it was quite obvious the noise was coming from a distrought male California quail perched on a nearby section of chain link fence, but the reason for the intense vocalization took a little bit longer to uncover.

California quail are actually common at my mother’s house, so seeing one atop the fence like this was not unusual by any means, but his continued and persistent calls, however, as well as his reluctance to flee when I approached the scene, definitely were an anomaly for these quirky little chicken-like birds.

Typically, quail in the yard prefer to keep their distance from people, staying close to the bushes for a quick escape if needed, and tend to only vocalize when they need to locate the rest of the flock, but this particular bird seemed to be breaking all the rules by letting me get quite close as he kept up the intense calls.

At one point, I thought I could hear other chirps, much softer that the male’s voice, which seemed to be coming from the nearby flower garden in front of the house, but as infrequent as they were, I couldn’t confirm or deny these additional sounds until the male quail flew down from the fence and headed straight for the thick patch of grass and rose bushes that were growing just off the edge of the porch.

Was the now seemingly perturbed quail trying to tell me something?

As he disappeared into the flower bed, the other calls became quite intense as well; there was definitely something going on behind the wall of roses that I needed to check out.

Shortly after entering the flower bed, it all made sense the very moment I looked at the bottom of the window well where a handful of baby California quail had fallen into and, sadly, were trapped.

All the male quail could do was offer a harrowing string of constant calls to encourage his offspring, but, unfortunately, that was to no avail; the window well was just too deep for them to escape.

There was just no possible way those delicate baby birds, most likely hatched within the past couple of days, were getting out on their own, so I gently scooped them up by hand, one by one, and set them free on the front lawn, successfully reuniting the family of quail once again.

Once they were all freed and I was out of the way, the small flock of quail gathered themselves together and headed off towards another portion of the front yard, not to be seen again for the rest of the morning, and understandably so after noticeably having been shaken by such an ordeal, I would surmise.

If it weren’t for the constant calls and chatter from the male quail, I never would have been alerted to this tragedy, and if he hadn’t gone back to the window well to check on his offspring, I might have never known just how serious it was, not to mention where the situation had actually unfolded.

One thing I would like to mention regarding the rescue that seems to be a common misconception about birds being handled like this, most birds have a very poor sense of smell and, unlike deer, for example, that can smell human scent on their offspring if handled which could possibly result in them abandoning their young as a result, they can’t smell human scent like many other mammals can so birds won’t abandon their young from scent residue.

If I’m not mistaken, some creatures, like deer, once again, do use smell to identify their young, but due to their poorly developed olfactory senses, these quail use sight and sound to identify and keep the family together, calling to each other and even quite possibly knowing family members from their distinct calls, differences you and I cannot discern from our limited senses.

So have no fear about human scent being left on the baby birds during their rescue; birds just can’t smell the same way other animals can, so there is no worry about abandonment just from scent.

Being part of an urban landscape like this, these particular quail don’t face all the same trials as their counterparts do in more rural settings, especially where predation by hawks, foxes, and even racoons is a huge daily concern, but they do face great woes of their own, mind you, including, the perils of falling into a deep window well, as we just saw, with no way to escape unless being discovered by an alert passerby.

Urban wildlife such as these quail also face another challenge residing in a residential neighborhood: food can be quite hard to come by at times since there is little or no natural vegetation producing the seeds needed for colder portions of the year when insects are no longer available.

For many years, my parents would put out wild bird seed for the songbirds, and the quail picked up on this and would come and scavenge under the feeder for the spilled grains, adapting to the urban lifestyle quite well, which is a reason why, I surmise, there were so many quail in her yard each time I paid her a visit.

I am here to report this small tragedy could have had a potentially disheartening outcome, but because California quail are very social birds and communicate to keep tabs on one another, especially when paternal instincts come into play or the flock is scattered, the constant and intense calling by the male quail grabbed my attention and was the deciding factor in being able to notice the situation as well as find and rescue the trapped baby quail.

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