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| Quail on Look-Out Duty, Strybing Arboretum |
The California Quail, our State Bird since 1931, was named San Francisco's "official bird" twenty-one years ago this month. The last time I photographed one of the handsome males in Strybing Arboretum was in 2008. It was always such a joy to hear and see quail in the arboretum, whether bustling across the trail with a line of newborn chicks in tow, or hopping up onto a park bench to provide early warning of danger from hawks and, probably more importantly, domestic cats.
Two years ago, SFGate reported that the quail had last been seen in Golden Gate Park in 2017 and was, by 2020, locally extinct. If cats (along with hawks, rats, skunks, and raccoons) truly were the bane of quail, then coyotes might give a boost to efforts to re-introduce quail in the Presidio. As a report on quail research from the Presidio Trust said, "Looking at urban parks across the state, researchers found that parks with coyotes had a 73% higher likelihood of being occupied by quail than similar parks without coyotes."
As far as I can tell, no quail have been reintroduced yet. Maybe now that the big Tunnel Tops project has finally been completed, attention can be turned toward doing so. I hope that someday soon I will once again be able to see and hear California quail in the city, and maybe even, once again, in Golden Gate Park.
What got me thinking about all this was a chance photo picked up yesterday by the trail camera I keep in the back yard:
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| Yard Quail |
The cam was triggered while I was setting it up and happened to be pointing at a metal quail sculpture (bought at Micano in Reno) that's mounted in the yard.
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