{"id":1002,"date":"2014-06-15T15:06:58","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T20:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2014\/06\/15\/return_of_the_quail\/"},"modified":"2023-10-05T17:00:04","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T22:00:04","slug":"return_of_the_quail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2014\/06\/15\/return_of_the_quail\/","title":{"rendered":"Return of the Quail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As an alert and perceptive Gazette reader, you no doubt recall this time last year when I undertook to <a href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2013\/06\/04\/130604-quail\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">stalk the wily blue quail<\/a> residing in our landscape. I was able to see but not photograph the two baby birds that the adults were protecting. And shortly afterward, the entire family moved out, apparently tired of nosy neighbors.<\/p>\n<p>Well, I&#8217;m happy to report that either (1) they don&#8217;t hold a grudge, or (b) the alternatives were even less hospitable, because the quail family is back&#8230;with a vengeance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom: 3px;\" src=\"http:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/quailfamily1.jpg\" alt=\"Adult blue quail and babies\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ccc;\" src=\"http:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/quailfamily2.jpg\" alt=\"Adult blue quail and babies\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After seeing signs of their dirt-scratching in our flowerbeds, we finally spotted the whole clan &#8211; two adults and nine (NINE!) babies foraging in the lawn yesterday. Occasionally, one of the adults (the male, I&#8217;m guessing), took a break from scratching for lookout duty.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ccc;\" src=\"http:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/quailonfence.jpg\" alt=\"Adult blue quail on wall\" \/><\/p>\n<p>That keen-eyed stare is designed to deter the most aggressive of predators, although he could possibly just be pondering the meaning of life.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I also managed to take the following 2 1\/2 minute video of the industrious family. It&#8217;s not the best footage &#8211; it was taken through some windows, between the slats of shutters, but I think the terminal cuteness of the babies comes through nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/98241360\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As an alert and perceptive Gazette reader, you no doubt recall this time last year when I undertook to stalk the wily blue quail residing in our landscape. I was able to see but not photograph the two baby birds that the adults were protecting. And shortly afterward, the entire family moved out, apparently tired&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2014\/06\/15\/return_of_the_quail\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Return of the Quail<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[278],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wildlife-birds","tag-blue-quail","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12446,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/12446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}