I think spring is here — the California Quail are nesting.
On Sunday, I accidentally found a nest while cutting back some old rabbitbrush about 20 feet from our house. The female didn’t move from the nest until I was almost done.
There is a tunnel into the thick Idaho fescue bunchgrass with a side area (for the male maybe?) and the nest. The nest is well hidden — it’s made of grass and has an arch of bunchgrass over it. There are 27 eggs in the nest! I was very upset that I had disturbed it. I quickly showed my husband Dave, recovered the area with brush and went inside to read about quail online for a couple of hours to assuage my guilt. I wanted to know if quail are very sensitive to nest disturbance. I didn’t find any information about that, but I did learn a lot more about California Quail:
From Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology:
Pairs generally form between members of the same covey, as early as February, depending on altitude and latitude. California Quail are generally monogamous, though in productive years, females may pair consecutively with different males. Nests are usually simple depressions on the ground, well concealed in rock or vegetation, and lined with grass.
Clutch sizes for California Quail vary very widely, from 1 to 28 eggs. Larger clutch sizes may result from “dumping” – that is, females’ laying eggs in nests that are not their own. No studies have explored the effect on clutch size of other factors, such as timing, location, or age of parents. Females generally do all the incubating; hatching is synchronized by vocalizations from the developing young while still in the egg.
We had a big storm that night and the replacement brush blew off. It was stormy on Monday as well. I stayed away from the nest area until Tuesday. At 3:30 p.m., when the day was nice and warm, I carefully crisscrossed two big juniper branches over the grassy clump and added more brush. The quail was not on the nest, so I took a photo and recovered the nest with the overhanging grass. I didn’t know if the female was off feeding or if the nest had been abandoned.
I couldn’t stand not knowing the outcome (I still felt really guilty), so I checked the nest again at 6:00 p.m., carefully pulling back the overhead grass. The female had returned to the nest! I quickly replaced the grass and went inside. Whew! Now we will leave the area alone for about three weeks or until we see a big covey of chicks.
Amazing — all of these stories unfolding every day whether we know about them or not, right outside the windows.
NatureGirlStudio 
