This Week at Liberty

My home is surrounded by desert habitat.  And, yes, in the past I have had many quail families to watch. Mom and Dad and all of their little chicks scurrying from one hiding place to the next in search of food and water and in avoidance of the predator that lurks. In past years, I have counted at least 5 different coveys with as many as 12 chicks in the group…they almost oozed over the ground there were so many.

But, not this year! One lone little chick and the folks is all I have been able to see, and I am vigilant about these things in my yard.

Sadly, it appears that I am not alone.

Calls and emails from the public indicate that others in the Valley are noticing the same thing. The productivity, or lack of it, is most probably caused by drought related breeding failures. A successful season needs all of the habitat components like nesting cover, lots of bugs, grasses all of which are the products of a good rainy season…which we haven’t had. No rain, no diverse grasses, fewer bugs, less cover leading to reduced breeding successes.

What brought this to my attention.

I discovered, inadvertently, a nest of quail eggs and mom as I was watering a plant in a pot that is three feet above the ground. All of the sudden when the water from the hose interrupted her patient incubating, she darted out leaving the 7 eggs exposed.  She had a lovely nest. The scrape in the dirt had feathers, loose grass or detritus from the plant and sufficient cover to protect her and the eggs as she waited for the ‘ready to hatch’ signal. Only it didn’t work out that way. I began checking surreptitiously in order to barricade the pool off when they managed to hatch and drop three feet to the ground…bad plan, mom.

Only none of this happened. It all went awry.  I checked a few days later, and one baby hatched. Yay! They would all soon hatch, and the pool barricades could be moved, and everything would be back to normal. But, NO!  She remained vigilant in her incubating. Somehow the message to hatch didn’t go out.  The next day, that baby was MIA. Alas, she remained on the eggs. The next day, there was one more baby.  Ok, now the action will begin. NO! She didn’t attend to that baby, and it also died.

By this time, I am bereft. When she left to get food and water to sustain her vigil, I checked again, and the second baby died probably from neglect…no food and water to sustain it as she continued to sit.

Still, she incubates. Nothing else has hatched.  Still 5 eggs remain.  It has been a month. My dilemma is …do I take the eggs and force her to move on?  Or is there a lesson she needs to learn from this failure. I have convinced myself that she is a first-year mom and isn’t having a good experience. Is it the failure of the needed elements to arrive in a timely manner that has caused the nest to fail? Or, how long before she realizes no success and moves on.  She leaves the nest to forage, but she still comes back and patiently sits.

It seems that this is an indicative of the elements of a failed season. There just might be a wisdom in nature that prohibits the little chicks from starving to death, or for the eggs to not be fertile, or for a young mom to waste too much of badly needed energy to raise chicks only to see them starve for lack of resources.

Whatever the reason, the lack of quail this season is being played out in a planter in my back yard and focuses my attention on just another need for the rainy season.

Bring on the monsoons…soon.