ENHS Nature Trails September 2000 Article 4

ENHS Members' Nature Notes

After a year's absence, a pair of mountain quail again selected a gassy area on our scrubby oak hill to incubate and indoctrinate their young. (Humans would do well to watch over their young a tenth as well as mom and pop quail.) These quail parents, forever vigilant since early summer, still assume a guard post a few feet off the ground while their chicks, now the same size as the parents, feed. Earlier in the summer, when the 18 wore little but their down, mom would often jump from her perch and scratch madly for food, enticing her fluff balls to find some for themselves. How they found anything to eat in the ensuing sprays of dirt and duff, I'm not sure. Pop it seemed, never ate. In mid-July, we heard that the quail family often sojourned to neighbors who promised me that their cats were wearing two bells. Days would go by and we wouldn't see our favorite family; we knew that mom and pop needed to introduce their young to the broader territory and its dangers. It's September now, and the numbers have been reduced to 12, but that's double the number last seen two years ago when the brood started out with 22. (Mom and pop each had sat on a separate nest of eggs.) Now, as if we hadn't wiled away enough hours this summer watching our quail, an interloper has added a new level of interest. Two days ago a ruffed grouse joined the quail family and often assumes guard duty as well. I think it's a mature female, perhaps a grandmother yearning for the days when she too had a brood to steer through adolescence. -Melody Clarkson

Thursday a.m. just before the rainy weekend - a large flock of geese heading south. Never saw that in August before. Violet-green swallows long gone (before August 23) but cliff swallows in the barn fledged their second brood Sept 5. All three +parents are still sticking around. Babies go back to their nest at night. -Reida Kimmel

First week of July three Violet-green swallows came out of our nest box. Thought we had the usual 2 but they must have been standing on the third one's head. Also that same week we started picking green beans. Tomatoes were late this year-didn't start ripening until the third week of July. Family of chickadees living in the back yard with the swallow family overhead. House finches are back. Many other common birds moving in and out of the yard but the really uncommon one was sighted on June 23, two blocks away on Jackson Street: A GREAT-TAILED GRACKLE! -June Smith

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