Lifer Mountain Quail


My friend Brian Stech and I have been talking about going to Belfair, WA to find Mountain Quail for a really long time! So we finally decided to go ahead and do it. We combined it with the Tacoma Slaty-backed Gull but unfortunately we dipped on him but we did get our quail! We had a whole Covey of them! A family of ten quails, including  a mother and her young. We camped out in the spot we heard they had shown up a week ago and after three hours they appeared literally out of nowhere. While we waited for the Quail we saw a beautiful Sharp-shinned hawk trying to eat some Steller's Jays and about 30 Band-tailed pigeons and 30 Mourning doves.

This beautiful and very skittish and elusive quail was a lifer for me! Brian had never photographed them before and only had brief glimpses of them in California.

Boy are they dashing. This one here is an adult female, they make very cute little sounds.

Female Mountain Quail in Belfair, WA - Photo: Melissa Hafting

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