Mysterion of the Birding World

Good news for my readers, it’s dog show time – more specifically, the annual National Poodle Specialty Event being held at Purina Farms outside St. Louis. I simply refer to it as Wall to Wall Poodles – white ones, black ones, silver ones, apricot ones, small ones, medium ones, big ones, “foofy” ones, agile ones and every “oodle” in between. Imagine a cute bomb going off in a large convention center. We also get to see not only Raven’s breeder from Minnesota, but Ruger gets to see his breeder from New York, his full sister (Willow) from Michigan and his half brother (Riot). Should be a fun couple of days – let’s hope Raven is ready to kick some butt. The good news quip at the start wasn’t because I thought you would be super interested in our dogs, rather these events mean I have a lot of free time I find best spent on the keyboard.

To kick it off, I am delighted to introduce you to one of my absolute surprise +1’s from our Lake Tahoe trip back in May 2019.

While tracking down the White-Headed Woodpecker series from the previous post, I stumbled on a set of shots which piqued my interest. I made a note to remind myself to head back to that queue once the Woodpecker post was out the door. Apparently, I put that small piece of paper next to my Honey-Do list … naturally I didn’t notice it hehehe. instead I took on the surprisingly difficult task of updating my bird list count. As of that particular day at that particular second the count stood at 288. Updated my NA Bird Gallery (link here) and even updated the little counter on the left nav bar. Tied up the final steps in the process, clapped my hands in self-celebration and then let out a huge sigh as the breeze from the enthusiastic clap gently blew a small piece of paper right of the desk and into my lap. CRAP!

Hit the jump to learn about my pleasant surprise – A real life Mysterion (as in South Park).

Okay, so the count is already out of date thanks to today’s featured feathered friend with the goofy question mark headpiece. Quails are not new to the blog as I previously featured the Gambel’s Quail back in November 2013 (link here). That series came from a sighting at Henderson NV. When I first took the shots of today’s specimen, I assumed that it was just another Gambi and didn’t think too much about it. It also didn’t help I had exactly 10 seconds to get the Beast on target and squeeze out 4, 3 shot bursts before this specimen was lost in the rocks and brush. Only four of those captures are anywhere close to being worthy of a post.

As I usually do when processing bird shots, I jumped on Cornell’s site just to remind myself of the key characteristics, reinforce any knowledge I happened to remember about that species and hopefully add something new to the grey matter for future use in the field – using the Gambel’s entry of course. Goofy head ornamentation check, brown crown, check, grey/brown wash with white stripes, check, plump, check, ground hugging, check, region, ch…whoa. Houston, we have a problem, Gambies do not hang out around the Tahoe area. Checked out the listing of similar species and found out a very similar looking bird called the California Quail. Now that is intriguing. Did some digging to confirm that the California hangs out in the eastern California range where the images were taken. More important, noticed there was a visible field difference between the two species – the Gambel’s have a solid buff belly patch where the Cali’s maintain their grey shading. To the pictures…..CRAP! (yes, again). Notice anything consistent in this series?

Yep, this specimen made a point to purposely hide this feature from my glass. Pretty sure that was an evil smirk in the last shot. Decided to check the digital darkroom cutting room floor for the off chance there was something I could use as a secondary confirmation beyond the region. Super embarrassed to include this first shot in the burst, but it was the only one that shows the grey is indeed continued on throughout the breast – ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a new +1 (for 289 for those, like me, who enjoy officially scoring the ball game).

With the ID out of the way, let’s see what interesting tidbits I can leave you with. Referencing Cornell, similar to the Gambel’s these plump ground runners prefer dry environments with low vegetation. If you are having your morning coffee, you might want to skip this next factoid. The Cali’s are able to digest their food thanks to intestinal protozoans that are transferred to their young by their chicks pecking at the adult feces, eww. Cali’s are brood mixers – no, not bartenders, rather chicks are raised as a group by the adults in the community – definitely cuts down on babysitting expenses! Oh, and the California Quail is California’s state bird.

Will call it there. Guessing Ron isn’t going to be overjoyed knowing that, thanks to his son, I was able to claw away another bit of his ever-thinning lead.

Take care and Poodle on.