Gambel's Quail in a rain-poor year

This has been a year of little rain.  Our average here in the Coachella Valley is around three inches, and last year, the 2012-2013 season, we saw about 2 inches of rain.  That might not have been so bad, but we hit some scorching temps in March, when the mercury hit triple digits, and most of the annuals that had sprouted just withered and died before any kind of wildflower show could manifest.  This seems to have a cascade effect:  no annuals, and no flowering perennials mean no seeds, which means no food for mice and rodents and ants, no flowers for insects, no insects for lizards and birds, fewer lizards and rodents for birds…well, you get the picture. I always see a reduction in the bird population the season following a lean-rain year, manifest in smaller broods, weaker and less healthy chicks, and scruffy-looking adult birds, scrambling to make a living for themselves and their chicks.

Quail tracks in sand.

Of the six quail species found north of Mexico, Gambel’s quail are perhaps the most adapted of them to desert landscapes, digging shallow scrapes in the shade of scruffy creosote or mesquite, limiting their activity to cooler morning and evening hours, scratching in the sandy soil for seeds and other bits of vegetation, or jumping up to snatch a tasty palm fruit, and getting their water from insects or succulent cacti when they can’t steal a sip from a backyard pool or earthquake seep.

I have had several calls from people this year, bemoaning the lack of coveys of babies this year and wondering what was wrong. These birds do require seasonal precipitation, in spite of the fact that they live in such an arid environment, as this is apparently an environmental signal that prompt breeding: the current thought is that some pigment in those fresh, spring greens causes the females to begin the breeding cycle.

So the seasonal ebb and flow of rain/no rain can cause the birds to limit breeding in low rain years, particularly if the fresh greens that spark the breeding cycle are “fried” by an early heat spell as we had this past March. So look for smaller, and fewer broods, and you will probably see them most in areas that do have a bit of water.

Chicks out foraging with the parents.