Alluring, but not Quite Enough

The pea flower blooms of one of our indicator legume trees, the Ironwood

We're short-timers here, at least so far as the summer goes.  Two weeks from today the house-minders will be in place and we'll be headed north on I-25 to Albuquerque for a quick overnight enroute to our summer abode in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.  The temp here just ticked over to 100.0 degrees this afternoon, though the mornings are still wonderful and you can open the house up at some point overnight to let in the cool night air and sounds of the howling coyotes.

Black-headed Grosbeak eyeing the bird bath (he did) from the creosote

The smothering yellow has faded considerably, being replaced by the more subtle mauve blossoms of the ironwood and desert willow trees.  It seems to be a heyday for birds, either residents or migrants, and we feel like we're being flirted with in hopes of keeping us here.  Tempting, but no -- and some of you, like the gorgeous fresh Black-headed Grosbeak who has visited us as we sit outside in the mornings and the brilliant male Summer Tanager that has flashed by, we'll see at the cabin.

Quail eggs in the petunias...

Others, like the Gambel Quail, we're trying to get our fill of as they are resident to this area.  Our faithful mother quail who sat so diligently on her eleven eggs in a large petunia filled pot in the busy barrio garden, hatched her brood during an exciting haboob (crazy wind storm) we had a few days ago.  They huddled in the pot, easily viewed from our kitchen window, all that afternoon and night but departed sometime the next morning a few hours after dawn.  This morning as we walked out the back gate to get a look at two coyotes passing through I startled some young quail chicks sending them scattering  They were about the right age for "ours" and I was glad the coyotes had cleared off by then.

We're doing our best to enjoy the last couple of weeks here in the Sonoran desert (we do love it, even when it's triple digits), but can't help dreaming of sweaters and wood-fires on chilly cabin mornings and wondering if the aspens will be leafed by the time we arrive or if we'll see the newly resident moose (!!!) around the cabin.  In the meanwhile we'll enjoy our Tucson friends, the early mornings, and our volunteer days at the Desert Museum before saying adios for the duration.
 

Tough love at this time of the year

Hatch Watch

When we got back from Colorado 20 days ago we spotted a female Gambel's quail roosting in one of our flower pots out back.  We don't know when she finished laying her clutch of 10 eggs, but we do know that incubation is between 21 and 24 days, so we can't be too far away from a hatching.

Last night we noticed a male Gambel's quail lurking around the nest.  Suddenly he squatted down on a bare expanse of gravel.  Had he been on dirt we'd have been expecting to see him take a dust bath, but he hugged the stoney ground, looking over toward where the female sat on her eggs under a potted flowering euphorbia.  These quails are monogamous and both take an active role in raising the chicks, but we had to wonder if this was maternity ward waiting room behavior.

It didn't take long to get our answer.  After a couple of minutes the male rose and cautiously approached the pot with the nest and tentatively joined his mate, carefully settling on some of the eggs.  After doing some research we learned that the male incubating the eggs is not unheard of, but quite rare.

You can see the female in the above picture, her shiny eye just above the edge of the pot.  The male is behind her, his black and chestnut head facing the other direction.

I guess we're the ones waiting anxiously in that maternity ward waiting room.