Scientist at Work Blog: Herding Quail Like Sheep

Jennifer Gee, a biologist at the Claremont University Consortium and the University of California, Riverside, writes from the tropical dry forest near ?lamos, Mexico, where she and Jennifer Calkins are studying Callipepla quail.

Wednesday, Dec. 28

As the light wanes the nets and traps are set, and we are poised for a quick start to catching quail in the morning. In a couple of hours, the whole village will be celebrating Christmas Eve with lots of food, live music and dancing. Along with Sallie Herman and Adam Hannuksela, my hosts at Novapatia Field Station, I have been graciously invited to join the party, which consists mostly of one huge four-generation family. It feels every bit as much a holiday as the years when I am able to spend it with my own family. The celebration continues as we head back to camp.

Before first light, I rouse myself and head back to the village. A few hardy souls have kept the party going around the fire pit. I can hear vocalizing as the quail begin to come down from their roosts, but I do not bother trying to record the sounds. Instead, I unfurl the nets and set the traps. Adam, Sallie and their dog, Abbey, arrive as if by cue. The previous day, I convinced myself that the best and perhaps only way to catch quail would be to herd them into the mist nets, and who better for the job than a shepherd dog?

To my good fortune, Adam is in the process of training Abbey to do exactly this task, and they are willing to give quail herding a try. The first quail we catch in the net is a bit by chance. As I extract her, she feels small in the hand. My data confirms it. These Gambel?s quail are indeed smaller than those in the California population. I am excited to see that she also has traces of the male-like facial plumage. Later, I find that about 70 percent of the females here at Navopatia have this male facial plumage, compared with roughly 8 percent of the California population. Just as I release the first one, Sallie brings me another quail that Abbey has ushered into the nets. By midmorning, Adam and Abbey have pushed a few more birds into the net. We have trapped equal numbers with nets and seed-baited funnel traps. All the while, visitors, especially children, come by to watch me band and measure the quail.

I am hoping to catch a total of 10 birds by the end of the morning. With help, I have caught just seven by the time the team from camp has to leave. I debate whether it is worth staying on alone since quail activity has died down. I am hoping to establish two to three other field sites during my two weeks here.

The birds are trickling in one by one ? I am up to 10. As I check a final time to see if I have caught any quail, I hear a group foraging right next to the nets. I begin trying to herd them myself (with one observer in tow) when four guys from the village party come to check on my progress. They immediately understand what I am doing and we all rush forward, pushing seven more quail into the net. Two are already banded, but five are not. As I band the new quail, I marvel at what a remarkable Christmas Day it has been.

By two o?clock, I pack up and head back to ?lamos, where I plan to revisit the elegant quail, and, more importantly, find some promising field sites where I will find Gambel?s and elegant quail together. If I am very lucky, perhaps I?ll even find a hybrid or two.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=3bc5821f07aa647bd871c81473d108e8

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