On the vineyard this day, I watched a pair with their four youngsters ...
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On the vineyard this day, I watched a pair with their four youngsters ...
Awesome. That's quite a small clutch though isn't it?
Great photo! Let me guess... it was snowing heavily, right?
They're Albino!!:thumbsup: So rare you rarely see them!! Soory @EeeBees Couldn't resist:cool:
:D Maca, thank you for making me laugh!!!!
@Wildman, with all the rain and low temperatures it is a wonder if many chicks will survive ...
:D Maca, thank you for making me laugh!!!! Didn't have my fone on me at the time so no fotos ...
@Wildman, with all the rain and low temperatures it is a wonder if many chicks will survive ...
I often wonder how young birds survive during wet and cold conditions - sometimes they don’t - but yesterday was a great example of how Quail can do it - I saw one family out in the rain with just two chicks - I couldn’t get them all together - but here is one older chick with Mum - I suspect they have had more than weather problems with just two chicks left
Then I spotted this lovely Quail family that were sheltering under a loading ramp walkway - I stopped the car about 5m away and hung out the driver’s window - hard to believe but there was about eight small chicks under there - I had to open the door which unsettled them and I missed good pictures as the chicks moved off with Mum and Dad - I went back an hour or so later and they were back under cover - but again I missed good pictures - I guess most birds can find shelter somewhere in their environment - but hard to shelter from predators
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That 2nd to bottom pic is a classicQuote:
Originally Posted by time out
Nice photos.
We love seeing those little fluff-balls following Mum and Dad around at this time of the year... so cute! The attrition rate is definitely high though with cats, stoats and hawks taking a high toll. That said, the population is very healthy here.
Quail are just so funny to watch. My daughter and I had a real laugh last week watching 4 or 5 of them playing in a dust bath. They had a race course set up... like a BMX track... and they were running around this little track chasing each other. It was about a 1 square metre long route and had bumps and rocks in it. They were at it for about 6 or 7 minutes, then moved on.
If I knew what to do with them I'd harvest the odd one or two.
I have made quail pate' with only one or two. using the breast meat not the liver....... with a dash of bourbon ..... not Chianti :o
Birdscaring on the vineyard ... parents and eight well grown poults ... well done them!! Could not take a foto as my mobile is dead after me dropping it ... dang ...
They do well at my place. I regularly see families of 8 to 12 on the driveway.
That is great, Pengy ...
Wonder what all the rain has done for the quail and pheasants ...... will find out soon enough :o
Was finally getting a good flock of quail around the house. Saw a cat one night and after the next few weeks the quail were all gone. Caught up with that cat the other night fushed it out of some blackberrys and boom gos the full choked 12 gauge and the feker run and went into the blackberrys:oh noes: hopefully it was just it's legs hadn't caught up with the brain.
Cool photos we have a small family around our house , mum dad and 3 chicks, been watching them grow up, they looked so hard case when they were first born, big heads on legs, should have gotten some pics. We feed them and they are getting used to us, we can get pretty close now. Any body no where they nest or if you can build nesting boxes for them, the wife pretty fond of them and wants to try and encourage them around.
Yeah me too - I'd like to build nesting boxes for our residents as wellQuote:
Originally Posted by rusl
I have seen lots of Quail families with young chicks - bumble bee size from December to almost full grown right now
Quail nest in warm, dry, safe areas - to be successful they need to be predator free - no cats, rats, hogs or mustilids - in that order
Year on year - they breed in the same areas - around the Park where I control predators - I am currently seeing family groups - often six to eight chicks per Mum or Dad - clever birds as they seem to nest several times and the family look after the chicks
I have only ever taken pics of one nest site - it was in a garden near a farm shed so they were accustomed to humans - 16 December 2015
They are very mobile and often used the driveway to move around - I might see them down the bottom in the morning then 400m up the drive to the shed by lunchtime and heading on up further
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Saw a hen pheasant in the vineyard with five well grown poults yesterday ... she has done them well ...
I had 14 of a mixed buch, young old, in front of my shed in Kinloch the other day, it's been a good season for them down there!
Our local quails vanished this, we saw a male a couple of times but then nothing, then my boys spotted a stray cat so I got a trap. Caught and dispatched 2 big nasty cats so far keeping it set because the neigbors tell me there are more. Hopefully if I thin the predators they Wil come back.
The rain id one thing but in CNI it has been drought. Last time this happened the grubs burrowed so deep the pheasants starved but quail were ok.
Great pics @time out.
Predator Free BOP is working well round our street - 20 odd traps - 39 pests are dead in two months - 1 ferret, 1 weasel, 12 hedgehogs and 25 rats - so we should get the Quail numbers up again next breeding season. I see Quail most days around the subdivision - I saw two with 10 chicks a couple of weeks back but the next day I saw a cat in the same place - a neighbour told me yesterday that he had 13 almost fully grown on his lawn a few days back - so they are around - but they can’t stand predators.
We are getting good numbers of Quail in the Quarry Park now - one area that has very low rat numbers is holding about 50 birds. I had to build 9 new doc200 traps to control hedgehogs around our internal roadways and garden areas as lots of Quail live in the gardens - but Quail cant nest where there are hedgehogs. We have plenty of rabbits so they should feed cats and stoats - but the gardeners soon complain about rabbit damage and that will cost us another contractor night shoot - expensive! and then the predators look for easy bird life. Our predator trap kill last year was 470 and another 73 so far this year - I find that the Quail only live in areas where rats and hogs are hard to find.
Nice work time out but you must pull your hair out after all that work and then the sub division cats come in and clean you out:(
We see cubbys on tracks this time of year had 1 cubby the other day was prob 70-80 birdsQuote:
Originally Posted by Pengy
You guys might be interested in “A Shooting Mans Creed” by Sir Joesph Nickerson
He had a grey partridge shoot here in the uk. What he did to increase there habitat would work well for quail.
Had shelters every 100meters. Just some corrugated iron on legs with a few bits of wood our bricks on top to weight it down.
Then he would put cold ash from his fires under this to great dust baths. Also a feed station and his traps near by so that you can check the lot as you do your rounds. Good read for any body that wants to improve your birds habitats.
Interesting read on hedge maintaining. Such a shame to see these have nearly all be pulled out in NZ. :( I understand why farms don’t want the maintenance costs of hedges. But for anyone that still has them, don’t pull them out but have a read on how to cut them properly so that they improve the birds habitat and help protect birds form being taken by magpies and such.
@Padox do you mean Covey? ;)
Thanks Sideshow - I believe that cats are the greatest threat to our Pheasant and Quail - but it is not yet PC to manage them in the Predator Free programs - wouldn’t it be simple to have a collar and bell on a pet cat
Quail are clever birds - they love to live around orchard shelter belts where there are years of mulched hedge trimmings on the ground - it almost seemed that they knew about my predator control systems - a Victor Pro in those boxes and entrance large enough for the hedgehogs
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Sorry yes I did slideshowQuote:
Originally Posted by Sideshow
damn time out your quail need weight watchers.
I was driving around some doc200 traps a few days back and this lot were in my way - I stopped and watched as they kept walking up to about 10m away - they don’t seem to have any fear of vehicles - then this bloody rabbit hopped out and scattered them - the big cock bird was watching over his covey - nice to watch them feeding - no wonder they grow so fast as they never stop pecking amongst the greenery
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cool :)
does anyone eat them ? I used to see them wandering around the garden in Titirangi (Auckland), back in the early 80s.
I would say you would want to head shoot them with the 22 so ya didn't lose all the meat from a 12G blast
rugerman, I like them very much ... however, now that I have eaten chukar, the quail are not in the chukar's league!!!! Delish!!!
