Callipepla - California Quail, Gambel's Quail, Scaled Quail, Elegant Quail (Paperback)

Chapters: California Quail, Gambel's Quail, Scaled Quail, Elegant Quail. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 24. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The California Quail, Callipepla californica, also known as the California Valley Quail or Valley Quail, is a small ground-dwelling bird in the New World quail family. It is the state bird of California. These birds have a curving crest or plume, made of six feathers, that droops forward: black in males and brown for females; the flanks are brown with white streaks. Males have a dark brown cap and a black face with a brown back, a grey-blue chest and a light brown belly. Females and immature birds are mainly grey-brown with a light-colored belly. Their closest relative is Gambel's Quail which has a more southerly distribution and, a longer crest (2.5 inches), a brighter head and a scalier appearance. The two species separated about 1-2 million years ago, during the Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene. The California Quail is a highly sociable bird that often gathers in small flocks known as "coveys." One of their daily communal activities is a dust bath. A group of quail will select an area where the ground has been newly turned or is soft, and using their underbellies, will burrow downward into the soil some one to two inches. They then wriggle about in the indentations they have created, flapping their wings and ruffling their feathers, causing dust to rise in the air. They seem to prefer sunny places in which to create these dust baths, and an ornithologist is able to detect the presence of quail in an area by spotting the circular indentations left behind in the soft dirt, some 715 cm (3-6 inches) in diameter. They are year-round residents. Although this bird coexists well at the edges of urban areas, it is declining in some areas as huma...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=74075