Gambel's Quail Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology (2024)

FAQs

Gambel's Quail Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology? ›

Gambel's Quail are gregarious birds of the desert Southwest, where coveys gather along brushy washes and cactus-studded arroyos to feed. Males and females both sport a bobbing black topknot of feathers. The male's prominent black belly patch distinguishes it from the similar California Quail

These quail prefer to remain motionless and rely on camouflage to avoid predators, especially if hidden by vegetation. They are preyed on by a wide diversity of small to medium predators including snakes, raptors, foxes, bobcats, and coyote. Gambel's quail prefer to roost in dense shrubs or trees at night.

Gambel's quail have a large black spot below a buff stripe on their lower abdomen where California quail have rich brassy and copper colored feathers. Both California and Gambel's male quail have white brow and "jaw" stripes against a black face.

Conservation Status

Currently, there is no significant conservation effort to aide the Gamble's quail, but the bird is doing very well. Habitat degradation from urbanization and cattle grazing are possible threats to the bird.

Gambel's Quail are ground-feeding desert birds—so they are likely to visit yards that offer birdseed and water at ground level. They sometimes also come up to elevated platform feeders. You can attract them with sunflower seeds, cracked corn, millet, and milo.

Gambel's Quail is often abundant near desert streams and waterholes, with coveys walking to the water in the morning and evening, giving a variety of clucking and crowing notes.

Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy. Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New World quail are placed in the family Odontophoridae.

Cooper's hawks often are responsible for much of the avian induced mortality. Other hawk species (e.g. sharp shinned, red-tailed, red-shouldered, broad-winged, and marsh hawks) and owls occasionally eat quail, especially when quail are abundant.

Compared to eating chicken, eating quail is better for you because quail meat is higher in vitamin C and iron. Quail gives you vitamin A whereas chicken does not. And quail also gives you more minerals and amino acids than chicken meat.

They forage along the ground's vegetation in the early morning and late afternoon hours, scratching for food under the plentiful cacti and shrubs of the Southwest. They especially love to eat the fruit of cacti. The flight of a covey of Gambel's quails is brief but powerful.

Do gambel quail mate for life? ›

When adults pair up and become a mated pair, it is not just for a single breeding season – these birds mate for life. They remain monogamous till death do them part. Both adults perform all parenting duties equally. Both select nesting sites, incubate eggs and, together, teach their young how to be quail.

It was named after William Gambel, a naturalist from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia who, while collecting plants and animals along the Santa Fe Trail in 1841, reported these birds as occurring “east of the California Range.” In the United States, California Quail are distributed along the coast and ...

Predators of Gambel's include hawks and bobcats, while nest predation from skunks, coyotes, snakes and ground squirrels also lowers populations. More studies on this quail species are needed for a better understanding of their population dynamics and mortality factors in Texas.

Gambel's quail inhabit brushy areas along river valleys, chaparral, and oak woodlands of high desert settings. These birds live in a wide variety of deserts such as low warm deserts with mesquite, upland warm deserts with Acacia, yuccas, and cactus as well as cool deserts with sagebrush.

Female Gambel's Quail typically select a concealed nest site on the ground, shielded beneath a shrub or in a clump of cactus or other protective vegetation. Occasionally they build a nest in trees that provide a stable platform, occasionally as high as 32 feet off the ground.

Northern bobwhites are often known as the "King of Native American game birds". Northern bobwhites are amongst the most widely studied bird species. At night, Northern bobwhites watch out for predators by forming a circle on the ground, their heads facing out and their tails pointing in.

It inhabits the desert regions of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Texas, and Sonora; also New Mexico-border Chihuahua and the Colorado River region of Baja California. Gambel's quail is named in honor of William Gambel, a 19th-century naturalist and explorer of the Southwestern United States.

The Himalayan quail (Ophrysia superciliosa) or mountain quail, is a medium-sized quail belonging to the pheasant family. It was last reported in 1876 and is feared extinct. This species was known from only 2 locations (and 12 specimens) in the western Himalayas in Uttarakhand, north-west India.

They can live up to 13 years in captivity but only 3–6 on average. In the wild they may live only 1.5 years. The eggs of king quail are a light, creamy-brown colour and slightly pointed at the "top"; roughly ovular in shape.