When a California Quail Feeds a California Thrasher

Summer has finally yielded its searing heat to the cooler weather of the autumnal equinox. As for the birds, fall migration has already begun. Just last week, I happened to spot a lone White-crowned Sparrow in the foliage around the birdbath, one of many who will eventually return inland from their summer habitat in the coastal foothills. They will be my neighbors until late spring next year, and how I look forward to hearing their soulful chorus in the early morning hours throughout the winter months.

It was a bounteous summer for California Quail chicks around my property. The first of at least ten broods made its debut beginning in May. To my delight, new hatchlings continued to appear all the way through the end of August. What a wonderful surprise. On any given day, multiple families would be scurrying in and out around the brush. They were as intent on staying hidden as I was on photographing them. 

Male California Quail brooding chicks

As the quail chicks grew from the size of peanut shells with legs to fully feathered flocks with top knots and tails, they spent more time loafing in the hedgerows where a drip system kept the ground moist and cool throughout the summer’s heat. Now fully grown, rather than running away when spooked, in unison they catapult themselves up into the over-hanging oak tree canopy with a rush of sound resonant of a deck of cards being shuffled. Can’t you just hear that sound?

My resident California Thrashers, too, have recovered from the untimely predation event that occurred during their first year I discovered them on my property (read story here). Like the quail, this pair had a banner year, producing two successful broods that provided me countless moments of viewing entertainment from behind my photography blind. 

California Thrasher feeding chicks

A truly magical confluence of inter-species serendipity occurred one afternoon when a covey of foraging quail crossed paths with a young California Thrasher begging for food. One of the thrasher adults had just fed the chick, and then departed looking for something else to feed its offspring.

It was at that improbable moment that a female quail passed nearby. Seeing the gaping mouth of the thrasher chick, and hearing its begging calls, she apparently could not resist the primordial motherly instinct to nurture, and placed her beak into the wide-open mouth of the thrasher. 

Suddenly, there occurred a flash of wings. The female quail shot into the air, knocking the beggar on its butt. Standing nearby, a male quail looked on with astonishment. The whole incident lasted little more than a few seconds.

This interaction was exceptional for at least three reasons. First, one species caring for the offspring of another species is unusual. Second, what makes it even more improbably is the fact that quail don’t normally feed their own offspring. Unlike some bird species (bluebirds, for example) whose altricial offspring are born naked, blind, and unable to feed themselves for several days or weeks, quail chicks are precocial, meaning they hatch feathered, sighted, and capable of foraging on their own within hours of hatching. It is remarkable, then, that this female quail responded to the thrasher chick’s entreaty for food.

Finally, and most marvelous of all, I witnessed the whole event, and recorded it to share with you.

Female quail feeds a thrasher chick

Female quail feeding a thrasher chick

Female quail knocks a thrasher chick down

California Quail and California Thrasher chick

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