Quail

This quail was sitting on the fence post yesterday evening. He was either calling for a mate or telling the other quail this was his territory. We see a big flock of quail like this usually sometime every day as we have water out for them.In the spring the flock breaks up into pairs, and then when the little ones are about half grown they come together as flocks again. They prefer to run rather than fly. They only fly when they are really scared and then not very far. Frequently we see one dash from one tumbleweed or clump of sagebrush to another. They hide in the brush and cactus mostly. I don't feed them as we have too many small crow like black birds that I don't want to encourage. I really like the quail and wish they wouldn't be so shy, but can't figure out how to tame them a bit. Not to much as I still want them to be wild birds.