Kathy Carter is the mother hen of orphaned animals at the Tucson Wildlife Center. The animal care specialist tends to hundreds of animals every year, weighing, feeding and eventually releasing them. But as late spring comes, a certain species takes up more of her time than others.
With hundreds of them coming in each year, quails earned their designated room at the Wildlife Center. Because of the high spring temperatures, the Quail Room was loud of chirping and pecks earlier than usual this year.
“Every year we anticipate that we're going to have them sometime very late April to May,” said Carter, who has already seen 500 quails through the center this season. “We usually have a little contest where everybody writes down when the first quail is going to hit. And actually, this year, I think the quail showed up before we could do the contest.”
Distinguished by their unique topknots, quails are common desert birds — often nesting in flower pots, under bushes, near patios or pools. After finding their place to nest, they typically lay around 15-20 eggs, a process that lasts several days.
“The majority of the eggs will hatch almost at the same time, which is pretty remarkable, because none of the birds can lay all of the many eggs that they put in a nest at one time,” Carter said. “Even the ones that are laid on the third day will be hatching right about the same time as the ones that were laid the first day.”
But if some eggs hatch later, the mother quail will often leave those chicks behind.
“When the remainder hatch, there's no parent there for them to follow,” Carter said. “Tucson folks love their quail, so they will gather them up, and they'll bring them in to us to take care of, manage for the period of life to get them where they can come out and be released on their own back into the wild.”
Before making a call to the Wildlife Center, Carter says people should check their yards for the parents.
“If they can reunite them with the family, that's the very best thing,” she said. “Nobody is going to take care of them the way their parents can.”
For those whose parents are not around, Carter takes up the job herself. She is currently caring for almost 200 quail chicks at the Quail Room.
“We can put up to 15 bins inside, and typically we put no more than 12 to 13 quail in a bin when they first start coming in,” she said. “We want to try to keep them together because they pretty much have made their own, you know, group out of that. And there's always somebody that's a leader, and you know, a bunch of little followers.”
Once the chicks reach 30 grams, they can flee the nest – or in this case, the plastic bins. But before releasing them, the quails need to get acclimated to the world outside of their box.
“We want to get them out of here so that they can feel the ground underneath their feet and feel the temperatures and experience an overnight scenario,” Carter said. “It's really important to get them acclimated to the sounds and the temperatures of what's going on outside before they get released.”
Quail season traditionally runs through July. If you find an orphaned chick in the yard, call the Tucson Wildlife Center for assistance.
