Quail Sightings

The other day something quite unusual happened in my garden, twice. Both times, for a few seconds each, I saw a quail walking around before it quickly walked behind something, the first time in the upper garden and then again a day or two later in the lower garden.

This was a big thrill, as I had never seen a quail in the wild before, during the whole time I've been living here, though I've heard Bob Whites quite often. This year especially, in the spring and the early summer, they set up some sustained and loud sessions of calls, at some distance away.

I wonder if I saw two different quail or the same one. And I wonder what it or they were up to. Is a quail establishment about to be made here, where, on my 20 acres at least, there are no resident dogs and only one now aged and non-roaming cat?

I don't know why anyone would want to kill a quall, unless they're totally marooned somewhere and on the verge of starvation. They are so cute and utterly harmless, and the little peeping sound they make is also cute. But that is what that hapless buzzard who was thought by many to be the U.S. Vice-Prez during the GWBush years and who is still making absurd pronouncements as if it still matters was doing, when he instead shot one of his hunting buddies. I think it was down in Texas.