It is hatching time! In my backyard I have seen a family with four baby mourning doves, a quail covey with two chicks, another quail covey with five, and two quail parents with a chick fluffed up by its new feathers growing in. I have not seen the baby woodpeckers in the saguaro nest (May newsletter) but the parents have been busy flying out to nearby trees for food. The skyscape is filled with chatter from birds transitioning to Summer.
In the last two weeks of May I saw a quail pair hopping up into my geranium planter. At first I thought they were scouting locations for a nest but then thought that wasn’t likely because I have a drip system running through that planter and assumed they wouldn’t have a nest where the ground was wet. When I checked on my garden in the evenings I walked right past the geraniums to check on my yellow pear tomatoes. I’d exclaim how cute the little tomatoes were, hanging in a cluster on the branch. Little did I know that the cutest things ever were about to hatch under the geraniums!
I looked out the morning of May 28 and saw the parents rummaging in the geraniums. Later in the morning I saw a clump of something near the garden and realized it was a newly-hatched batch of chicks! I raced over to the window and counted five chicks clustered under their mother. They followed her across the concrete and down into the dirt. She hopped back up on the concrete and four followed. The littlest one wasn’t able to flap enough to get back on the concrete so she led the others down to the dirt to could go around another way. Once they were gathered in the dirt she showed them how to wallow. One gave it a try and left the tiniest little indentation in the dirt. Then they were on their way.
If I hadn’t been looking out the window at that moment I would have completely missed it. Have your binoculars nearby so you won’t miss a moment of hatching season.