"Critters"--Quail

January 21, 2026

Female, California quail, running upslope in the snow

Skittish birds with elegant headwear

Don’t get me wrong. I come to this space—this dark January morning—in a crazy world with snowballing, unresolved tragedies. with what remains of my tattered sense of humor. Like many of my neighbors, I’ve not seen the sun in a week and my heart goes out to people of the upper Midwest, and Ukraine, as a bitter cold snap sets in for the next several days. I surmise we could all use a nice warm day at the beach about now.

Birding guides offer an economy of facts that are prosaic in ways that I am not. With that preface, I enjoy quail, as long as I’m not making them nervous which—in the wild with a camera—is never my intent. What my field guides don’t address is that quail have heightened anxiety issues that are often untreated. As comedian Paula Poundstone has observed, quail are hunted, sometimes by powerful politicians in the company of oil barons. And that makes their high-energy anxiety more understandable as they sense the presence of one or more nefarious humans in their realm.

Generally speaking, the only time I see a calm quail is when I’m looking out through a window, or if I’m resting in the woods and am as still as can be. When they’re not worked up, quail have a distinct, three-note call. An observable movement causes them to scatter with a tick-ticking that becomes all the more rapid—like a geiger counter meeting a vial of radioactive cesium—the closer you get. If you get too close you’ll hear a an impressively deep sputtering sound as the quail take flight and tick-tick even louder.

By analogy, imagine you’re at a holiday party. You hang up your coat and are pleasantly directed by your host(s) to the kitchen, to fill your plate with nachos, or secure a mug of warm cider. And then, suddenly, the dozen or so people already in the kitchen just run for the door to the dining or living room, some spilling nachos and cider on the floor as they scamper, without even bothering to make eye contact. “Oh for chrisakes,” you might think, or even say, “it’s just me.” —tjc

A Gambel’s Quail, a close relative of the northwest California Quail (above) that inhabits the Sonoran desert of the Southwest.

Male California Quail at a familiar perch in a thicket

Scampering in the rimrock

Male Gambel’s Quail, puffed out in a perch

Male lookout at a high perch in a riparian area west of Spokane

Please support this project with an annual subscription to The Daily Rhubarb at the above link…tjc

High in the hawthorn

Hyper-vigilent hen in her winter coat