Scaled Quail family-video clip and pics

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A friend of mine here in Canon City lives in an area with a lot of Scaled Quail. She feeds the birds and the Scaled Quail come into her yard not only to eat but to rest in a safe location. The Scaled Quail in the pic above is a male sunning himself.  The tiny chicks below were 30 feet away-used a long lens and also cropped to provide very close views.

In the pic above the mother quail is lying in the grass while her offspring explore nearby.
While I observed from distances no closer than 30 feet away and from inside my car the mother quail was always quite close to the chicks as shown below. I used a long camera lens to get close appearing views.

And the male quail was nearby, standing guard as shown in the pic below.

The mother quail brought her offspring to a feeding area provided by my friend where they are eating seed fallen from a feeder above.

Below is a brief video clip in which both the Scaled Quail parents are seen escorting their very young offspring to below a feeder where the seed has fallen on the ground. A Curve-billed Thrasher photo bombs the video clip. These young quail are just way too cute. SeEtta

Scaled Quail parents with very young offspring from SeEtta Moss on Vimeo.

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