It all started a couple of weeks ago with a young, injured mourning dove.
I found her walking around my backyard with her left wing dragging and unable to fly. She was small and feral. I knew I had to do whatever I could to keep her safe and hope, against all odds, that her wing would repair itself and she could join her flock. My daughter and I bought bird seed and put out shallow dishes of water for her which she immediately took to. She never let us get to close to her, and after 4 days with us she took flight.
It was a proud moment. I was so happy for her, and yet also oddly very sad. She had become our backyard pet in a way.
Since we had so much birdseed left, we decided we might as well keep tossing out a few handfuls every morning and keeping the water dishes full in case she ever wanted to visit us again. She might have….not sure because doves all tend to look alike….but we’ve definitely cultivated quite a nature preserve in our yard now. I love this, and find myself surprisingly captivated by these birds.
I suppose this means I’m officially getting old now….bird watcher lady and all.
Now let me get to the real meat of this story….because our visit from that little dove opened the door for a family of quail to move in. This past week we’ve had a mama, dad, and hatchlings join us. I had never seen baby quail before moving here…and I can honestly tell you they are the cutest things on earth. They are smaller than a golfball, fuzzy, and fast as can be. Almost unreal in their preciousness.
You can imagine how amazed and overjoyed my kids and I were to have these new little additions to our little backyard menagerie…but that’s where the happiness ends.
Two days after our little quail family moved in I noticed less chicks following their parents. Eight chicks went down to six then down to two and finally, as of this morning only one remains. I find myself obsessively looking out the window to see if I can catch glimpse of it. I find myself praying this little fluff makes it. I’ve somehow become incredibly emotionally invested in this little family. I am a mama myself, after all.
From my research baby quail have an extremely high mortality rate and few make it to adulthood. Predators, disease, and just an overall fragility is to blame. It’s nature. I get it. My heart still hurts and I realize I could never make a very good farm girl.
Watching these quail has been fascinating. I’ve learned that quail are incredibly loyal and mate for life. I watch the dad take his post at the top of my fence to make sure his wife and baby are safe. When I walk out to refill the water and toss a handful of seed he calls out in warning. I watch the mama stay close to her remaining baby and wait for it when it gets distracted, as all offspring tend to do, until it catches up to her.
Such small animals, with such small brains, and yet their instinct is tremendous.
Watching this little quail family in my backyard makes me think a lot about parenting and the journey so many of us take.
Whether a traditional family or not….we stand sentinel in so many ways in order to protect our young.
We make sacrifices.
We brood over them, watch over them, love them, wait for them.
I watch these birds do everything they can to take care of their babies (regardless of how sad the outcome may be for so many of them) and in a strange way it makes me think a lot about my own family. About families in general.
As many of you know, I made a bold yet necessary decision a year ago to leave everything familiar behind and move my kids to a place where they could live normally and peacefully.
It was a decision that was not well understood by some people, caused rifts in relationships, and left me feeling incredibly hurt and unsupported by some….but my instinct, like a mama or daddy quail’s, had to prevail…and did.
My kids have thrived because of this decision.
My “standing sentinel on the wall” paid off. I knew what was coming, and what needed to be done.
…and now my kids watch the little quail family with me from our windows and pray together that this one baby gets to thrive and grow up too.
Nature teaches us so many things….and reminds us of what’s important. Animals are often not so different than us. I supposed I’ve always known that…but sometimes it takes a handful of birdseed to really get to see it.
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I have an update on my quail family since I began writing this blog post a few weeks ago. I was so worried about that last little chick that I had taken to working on my couch so that I could keep watch on the quail through my living room window. (My office is at the front of the house, and living room at the back so I had been acting like a maniac running back and forth to “check” on the chick.) I knew that nature does what it does and ultimately I wouldn’t have any control over the outcome, whatever it may be….but I still had to try.
I noticed that there were a few new and different kinds of birds visiting my backyard and at one point watched on swoop to try and grab the chick as it crossed the lawn with its mama to get back to their nest underneath one of my rosemary bushes. I ran out yelling “NO!!” and for sure my neighbors must’ve thought I had lost my mind. Maybe I kind of did.
The bird took off and I sat and did what I do best….research. I found out these birds are called Grackles and are not native to Arizona. They are native to the Northeast of the US and somehow have migrated to our desert and have been wreaking havoc on the quail and other small bird populations by attacking chicks, raiding nests and killing. Not for food…just for sport. Terrible instincts.
The last baby chick never made it. It was taken by a Grackle and my last view of the mama and daddy quail was of them frantically running around my yard and then they flew away.
As sappy and ridiculous as it may sound, this moment of nature’s cruelty struck me pretty hard. I was incredibly sad and couldn’t stop thinking about how these quail parents may have felt. I understand that their brains don’t function with the complexity ours do….but there is still a sense of loss. I watched them seek their baby….I remember how protective they were. Always watching and waiting.
That made me realize how helpless we all can and do at times feel as parents. Especially as our kids grow older and they leave the proverbial nest. My two are 15 and 18. Soon they’ll be out in the world and even though I’ll want to watch over and protect….I won’t be able to.
We just pray fervently that our kids will always be safe and never meet the Grackles of humankind.
On a happier note, I’ve had four other quail families visit my front porch every day since then. I watch them from my desk, and so far these all seem to be doing well. One family, in particular, really has my heart….it’s a daddy quail and his four chicks. There is no mama quail. I’m afraid she met an untimely demise, but the dad is out every single morning with his littles, watching over and protecting. Single parenting in the animal kingdom…and a dad at that.
I think I’ve officially become a birdwatcher in my mid-life….and I can’t say I don’t love it.
Except for the Grackles. No love for them. And not sorry about that either.
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