Gambels Quail Photo courtesy Byron Wright New Mexico Cooperative Extension Service.

One night just after sunset, Richard and I drove up to a friend's house in the desert. As we stepped out of the car, we heard a low whistle. Then a dozen or so small, chunky birds with nodding plumes atop their heads ran across the gravel driveway and disappeared in the dusk. The birds were Gambel's quail, one of the two species of quail that frequent this part of the Chihuahuan Desert.

Quail are among the desert's most beloved birds. Gregarious and loquacious, they live in groups and fill the air with their soft whistles, clucks and metallic plinking sounds. Their habits make quail easily seen and heard. In The Mysterious Lands, Ann Zwinger describes Gambel's quail: "They remind me of charming wind-up toys - bustling about with staccato movements, officiously giving each other directions as they forage among the creosote bushes. In winter, quail often congregate in flocks of one or two hundred birds; in summer, they split up into family-group coveys of a dozen or so. They graze the desert like flocks of small chickens, munching on succulent plants, fruits and seed

s, and insects."

Chunky, ground-dwelling birds, quail depend on their legs to keep them from becoming a meal. If pursued, quail dash for cover. Even the chicks are prepared to dash away. They hatch fully feathered, with eyes open and legs ready to run. If running away does not suffice, the birds explode into randomly-directed flight, surprising and confusing pursuers with their sudden, noisy wingbeats and the plump bodies hurtling every which way. Quail look striking close up, with their heavily streaked, spotted, and striped plumage, and their head plumes or topknots. But their fancy feather patterns are also defensive, blending quail into the complicated shadow patterns cast by desert shrubs and trees.

Quail are often called annual birds, because, like desert wildflowers, their numbers fluctuate widely with yearly rainfall. In years of abundant summer and winter rains, quail may lay several dozen eggs; in dry years, none. Researchers believe that quail food provides a natural birth control. In dry years when less succulent forage is available, quail graze heavily on locoweeds, plants that accumulate high levels of selenium and other heavy metals. Large doses of these toxic metals cause spontaneous abortions, limiting clutch size. Quail breeding times also depend on rainfall: In the winter-rain-only climate of the Mojave Desert, quail breed in spring when succulent vegetation is plentiful. In the Sonoran Desert where rains may come in both winter and summer, quail, like other birds, sometimes breed twice a year. In our Chihuahuan Desert, quail time their breeding to the summer rains.

One of my few regrets about living in town is not seeing quail. I miss the bustling presence and loquacious whistles of these most typical of desert birds.