We've never seen the mother sit on the nest, and it wasn't until there were four or five eggs that we noticed them at all.
Gambel's Quail are among my favorite visitors to our backyard in the Arizona Sonoran Desert. The male and the female are about the same size--about ten inches from beak to tail.
When they fly (which isn't often unless they're threatened) they display a wingspan of sixteen inches or so.
The clutch has grown by one egg per day, and when I took this photo, there were ten.
No doubt the clutch is larger now, and any day now, we'll see the family walking single file across our yard toward the arroyo between us and the mountain.
Dad will be first, then the little ones all in a line, and finally, Mom, bringing up the rear. The babies are little balls of fluff; they look like walnuts on sticks!
I'm Mike in Tucson, your preferred Tucson, Arizona mortgage lender.
Think of me as your local expert.
Mike Jones
;)
Mike, Oh so cute! When I lived in PA, every year our geranium plant would have a nest of wrens. Enjoy your new babies and try to get some pictures for us!