The Quail Whisperer

One of my neighbors is big strapping fellow, a retired police chief and a big exerciser. On his return from a recent run he was stretching against the street sign post and noticed a mama quail and her chicks running under a bush near him. The papa quail was up on a higher tree sounding the call. The mama quail uncharacteristically came back out and started squawking at my neighbor. She darted in and out of the bush each time coming closer and closer. It was almost as if she were talking to him. After a few minutes of this behavior the mama quail managed to convince him to walk over to a nearby drain. My neighbor obliged and looked in the drain and there he saw 4 of what must be the mama quail's babies! He struggled mightily to lift off the grate covering the drain. He managed to lift it up and scooped up the babies. Three of them rushed off to join mama right away but the fourth one was a little wobbly but in time rejoined the family. Neighbor dutifully replaced the grate. The next day he went back to inspect the drain and wouldn't you know this time there were 5 babies in the drain! This time he and his wife formed the baby quail rescue squad. No easy task as these babies were trying to hide by running inside the drain pipe. I guess they hadn't gotten the message that the "quail whisperer" was there to save them.

Rain, ducks and peacocks

It's pretty late in the season for rain but we've had rain the past 2 Sundays and over an inch yesterday and another 1/4 inch this morning. This picture is of an opportunist water hazard that appeared near the 18th green. As you can see it true what they say about "ducks to water"! If you build it they will come.

Last evening after the major rainstorm T and I headed out for our Sunday evening dinner and we saw a male peacock crossing the road heading towards the most beautiful complete rainbow.

Make way for ducklings

The fowl population in the neighborhood is burgeoning. There are baby everythings around - humming birds to quail to coots, ducklings and hawks. We really get to witness nature in the raw around here. The last couple of days we have watched the adult (probably female) coots, quails and ducks taking care of their young charges. The coots were diving under water resulting in what looked like a teaching session to the cootlings in how to dive for bugs. There were 4 mother ducks with their heads under water and tails up and a huge number of ducklings. The reaction was that of your typical disinterested toddler who doesn't want anything to do with what mama wants. The quails on the other hand had their brood of nearly a dozen quailings well under control. Papa flies up to a fence and mama leads the quailings into the underbrush. He squawks to distract us and mama periodically ventures out to see if it's safe to come out. There was at least what I think was a red winged hawk trying to carry off a duck. There was obviously a fight to the death (lots of feathers on the fairway). The hawk tried valiantly to take the duck back to its nest (I think) but it was just too heavy - eyes bigger than stomach or wing strength anyway.