Wednesday Vignette - Quail!

Video: the covey of quail that have been visiting our yard this winter, eating the birdseed Joe’s been spreading on the ground. Such fun to watch them!

Today’s “Wednesday Vignette” features the quail; blooming witch hazel (Hamamelis ‘Arnold Promise’); the area of our yard currently under construction; and the various winter menagerie that hangs around this place!

The quail are feeding in the area below our living room windows that we’ve been gradually excavating into terraces, while also building a deer fence. Soon there will be gravel patios here (photo below).

I believe these are native California Quail (Callipepla californica). My lens isn’t long enough to see much of their cute top knot feathers, bobbing as they feed. But the video’s better.

The quail’s usual behavior is ground dwelling, but they’ll fly up into things sometimes. In the photo above, one (circled) is watching from new fence beam.
You can also see the painted patio lines, which were stronger before the snow. (Photos for this blog were taken on three different days.)

On the right of our living room window view is the almost-finished deer fence. This is the section with the biggest gate, most seen from the living room windows. Panels of wire “remesh” (welded wire mesh, made for concrete reinforcement), will be installed in the open areas, after some more excavation. A gravel patio will be directly in front of the gate, and a second patio below on the left.

On the other side of the living room windows, are the bird feeders. On one of the quail days you could see so much wildlife out there! I gave a try to get as many of them into one shot as I could. Marked above: squirrel, quail, deer. There’s also all the birds…so it is quite a menagerie. (Joe does like to feed them!)

When the area was dusted with snow last week, that Hamamelis kept up the flower show.

I truly love this Arnold Promise Hamamelis. It is a beacon, every February. This year it’s put on a particularly long show. And the smell . . . talk about aromatherapy! Best February air in the world.

I could not decide which close-up to include, the blue sky background, or the sea-foam-green lichen background. So I’m sharing them both.

That concludes my post for today. For more Wednesday Vignette blogs, visit the incomparable Flutter and Hum, Anna K, as she heads off to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show.

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