Tuesday, July 12, 2011

New Residents

Mrs. Quail sits under the canopy of a lettuce plant.

Quails don't walk slowly when they know I am in the garden.  They fly away.  When I saw Mrs. Quail walk quietly away from the vegetable garden, I knew she was hiding something in there.  Like discovering some treasure, I found ten speckled eggs nestled under the ruffled lettuce leaves. 

We have been gone away for a long time this summer.  Mr. and Mrs. Quail decided that the garden was a promising place to raise a family.  Here they found food, water, and shelter. 

Ten tiny speckled eggs.

A few years ago, we had another quail nest in a pot of ivy geranium.  My children looked at the mother quail sit there every day.  Then one day, all they saw were egg shells.   My kids were very sad.  However, a few days later, we saw a family of quail with twelve chicks cross the lawn in a single file.  They were so cute!
This time my younger daughter visits Mrs. Quail every morning.  She hopes to be able to see the chicks when they hatch and before they leave their nest. 

Planting of the next vegetable crop will be delayed until the eggs are hatched.

8 comments:

Christine @ the Gardening Blog said...

Oh how wonderful! I hope you manage to take a photo of the baby quails! Would LOVE to see them. xxx

analisa said...

Beautiful pictures...thanks for sharing.
Please follow me back @ www.biguniversesmallworld.blogspot.com.

Cathy and Steve said...

So wonderful! We have robins just about to leave the nest. We are all hovering at the windows (we don't want to disturb them) hoping we get to see them take flight.

Enjoy your little family. The planting will keep! ;)

Bom said...

How fun for the kids, Helen. I hope your daughter gets her wish and like Christine in the first comment, I hope we get to see a picture of the chicks too.

Unknown said...

How lovely to see nature under your nose like that. We just get seagulls on the coast of England. Noisy, thieving creatures! I'm very jealous!

Christine @ the Gardening Blog said...

Hope all is well with you Helen! We miss your posts xxx

Cathy and Steve said...

Oh my gosh, how truly wonderful! (Both that your daughter might see them hatch and grow, and that you are avoiding disturbing them.)

We had two clutches of robins this summer in a nest perched precariously on a folding screen outside of our doors to the patio from the family room. Out of deference to the robins, we didn't use the door for almost 2 months. many people rolled their eyes, as this was quite an inconvenience, but watching them fledge was our reward for giving them space. Keep us posted!

Tarps UK said...

Excellent work sir...
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