{"id":54864,"date":"2017-12-21T06:07:59","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T13:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=54864"},"modified":"2017-12-21T10:08:33","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T17:08:33","slug":"california-quail-in-utah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/21\/california-quail-in-utah\/","title":{"rendered":"California Quail In Utah"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s\u00a0my tendency to appreciate native bird species more than I do those that have been introduced but right or wrong I\u00a0tend to\u00a0make an exception for\u00a0California Quail.<\/p>\n

Native only to the Pacific coast from\u00a0British Columbia\u00a0down to Baja they were first\u00a0introduced into Utah in the area of Salt Lake City’s Ft. Douglas\u00a0in 1869 by General John Gibbon<\/a> (he was a fascinating character in Civil War and western history in his own right) where they have thrived and even spread. I regularly see these\u00a0saucy little quail in my neighborhood and yard near the Jordan River and they occasionally nest near and\u00a0beneath\u00a0my backyard storage\u00a0shed.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I tend to avoid photographing them in obviously\u00a0urban and suburban\u00a0settings but three days ago\u00a0I found a large and\u00a0cooperative\u00a0covey of adult males and\u00a0females along the Jordan River Parkway and that setting looked just a little more natural so of course I fired away with my camera.<\/p>\n

Males\u00a0are boldly patterned with a distinctive black, comma-shaped topknot hanging forward in front of their face.<\/p>\n

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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Adult females are somewhat\u00a0similar to males, though duller and browner.\u00a0Their heads are entirely brownish gray and lack the bold markings of the male\u00a0and they don’t have the distinctive chestnut patch on the belly.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I got a few shots of a male where the background wasn’t so close to the bird. The topknot is actually a cluster of 6 forward-facing black feathers (plumes) whose function is apparently still debated, especially\u00a0because adults of both sexes have them.<\/p>\n

The somewhat similar but more southerly residing (in Utah)\u00a0Gambel’s Quail lacks the black scaling on the underparts and their dark\u00a0belly patch is black rather than cinnamon.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Generally I’m not a fan of multiple birds in my photos but for several reasons\u00a0this series turned out to be\u00a0a bit of an\u00a0exception. I like the symmetry and separation of the three males in the photo and the sharp focus on the primary subject in the middle.<\/p>\n

But mostly I like the series because the center male put on a little show for me. It was only a brief wing flap but it’s something I’ve rarely if\u00a0ever\u00a0photographed in this species so I was happy to get it.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

He puffed up his chest…<\/p>\n

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1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

and turned his head to give me better\u00a0eye contact as he began to…<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

expand his primaries and flap\u00a0although he never did fully extend his wings. This was another one of those times I was glad to have enough shutter speed to completely avoid motion blur.<\/p>\n

As spring breeding season approaches California Quail coveys dissolve and the adults adopt a variety of complex mating strategies including social monogamy, sequential polygamy and simultaneous polyandry. So here in northern Utah beginning in about late March\u00a0they’re generally not seen in large groups like these birds were.<\/p>\n

If you’re interested in seeing and hearing\u00a0these\u00a0quail as I often see them in my own back yard in spring and early summer you might want to watch this video clip<\/a> that includes interesting scenes of their busy family life. One of my life’s joys is to be sitting at my computer as I’m preparing one of my blog posts and have male California Quail calling from a tree outside my window in full view and\u00a0only about 10′ from my face.<\/p>\n

Now that’s some real inspiration.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s my tendency to appreciate native bird species more than I do those that have been introduced but right or wrong I tend to make an exception for the California Quail.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,2515,391],"tags":[2512,2513,137,3755,3756,211,506,3757,3758,3089,3275,311,739],"class_list":["post-54864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-california-quail","category-nesting-and-mating","tag-california-quail","tag-callipepla-californica","tag-female","tag-general-john-gibbon","tag-jordan-river-parkway","tag-male","tag-mating-strategies","tag-physical-description","tag-plumes","tag-salt-lake-county","tag-topknot","tag-utah-2","tag-wing-flap"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/california-quail-8404-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-egU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}