Backyard bird watching!

Dean is off to Kitt Peak for an Advanced Observing Program, but not before we checked my camera bag for anything he might need tonight.  Doing that reminded me that I hadn't done anything with my pictures lately, and couldn't really remember what I had photographed lately.  Sometimes you wind up with pictures that are better off deleted, sometimes you find little gems!

Back on March 28th I espied a Gambel's Quail roosting in a tree, behind our fence.  He wasn't being very quiet about his existence there, he was calling like mad - either for a mate, or warning the other quail in the area that "there's a bunch of cats over here!"  Either way, I had never seen one roost in a tree - I didn't even know they did that!  They aren't very big, not like a turkey roosting in a tree, but since they're ground birds I thought it was unusual.  Dean says that he's seen them do that before, not so unusual after all, and I have seen at least one more in our trees since then.
So, to read about our little friend, click here: Gambel's Quail  They have a very distinctive little call, nothing fancy mind you, but now that I know what they sound like I listen for them in the lot behind our house.  We haven't seen any chicks this year, but the best description of them is little gray cotton balls with fast moving feet.  Surely, there is a method to their madness, but it's hard to tell what that may be!