One of my favorite memories of a family trip to Arizona was seeing Gambel’s quail and white-winged doves. These birds are suburban wildlife, and coming from a place where the native quail species (the Northern bobwhite) is all but gone, the Gambel’s were my first experience with quail.
The birds lived and nested at the hotel where we were staying. I remember that one quail hen laid her eggs in flowerbed that was four feet off the ground. One of the hotel staff motioned us over, and when we looked into the flower bed there was a quail hen and a bunch (maybe a dozen) tiny chicks. They were like turkey poults but much smaller.
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I thought white-winged doves were some kind of mutant mourning doves until I consulted my field guide.
And I thought Stevie Nicks made that animal up!
In the top video, there are mourning doves mixed in with the white-winged doves. They aren’t that hard to tell apart when they are standing near each other.
