And now we have quails

I have mentioned that my daughter has a love for animals, haven't I? I must say, though, that she is a very responsible young lady. For the current collection of animals already living here, she does look after them well. First thing in the morning, before breakfast, she's out and feeding the chicks, then playing with the dog. So, when she said she's been saving her pocket money to buy a bird or two, we knew she'd do a good job looking after them.

Now, there's been a lot of thought put into this over quite a few weeks. It started with my parents passing on a birdcage and stand they no longer wanted (thus, planting the idea), and lead to Mariposa's researching birds, or more importantly, how much noise they make. Budgerigars and cockatiels are fun to teach to 'speak', but have a very loud call at other times, so we went with Papa's request to not buy those.

At the end of December, she decided she had enough money saved. There were still a nice variety of birds to choose from, but the final decision was to buy a pair of king quails. They're about the size of a sparrow.

They were still very young when we bought them, just getting their adult feathers. Of course, one of the first questions we had to ask was 'How do you tell them apart?' as the chicks looked very similar. The male has a black 'beard', much like a male sparrow has a black 'bib' on his chest. Throughout the last three weeks, they became quite tame and we could see the colours of blue/grey and rust coming through in the male.

This week was full of disappointment when the female quail died. The vet had a look at her while she was ailing, but nothing was to be done. So, we have a new female now, and she cheered Mariposa up immensely last night by presenting her with an egg.

The nesting cage has been put in this morning, but the egg was 'rescued' to the original laying spot soon after.  It may take a while before it's accepted as a comfy laying site.

I'm enjoying seeing the children learning more about birds this way. Of course, Maestro just can't keep away and likes to pet them too. I quite like hearing their friendly little calls in the morning, and then when they say 'goodnight' again at sundown.