And back to Snowpea

Our super-mum, Snowpea, has hatched her fourth brood! Six little babies, all doing beautifully - until this morning - when there were only five. Snowpea defends them fiercely, and hunts for food all day long, but I can only imagine one either got lost (and froze overnight) or was attacked and killed by another bird. The tiny chicks do get confused as to which quail is mum, if there are too many around.

Anyway, they are gorgeous, and enjoying all the insects that show up when we tackle our overgrown weed patches...

"This is a jackjumper ant, kids - they bite, so eat it quickly."

Snowpea and the three greediest chicks who stay close by...you can just see their wing feathers starting to sprout.

"Ooh mum, I can't eat that - yuk!"

"If you just wait, it'll come out again any minute now..."

"I know there's something good under here."

Muddled Melon!

Remember Melon? She was abandoned by her mother - Snowpea - at an early age, but refused to completely leave her, and ended up co-parenting Snowpea's next hatch of eight (who all survived). This time, Melon was sitting on her own 10 eggs. We had high hopes for her, as Snowpea is our best mother, and we thought Melon might have learned all the tricks for successfully raising a family. Mmm...
It seems that once her first chick hatched, Melon got over-excited. I found 6 eggs rolled out of the nest (unhatched) and three left in the nest (unhatched), and Melon happily finding food for one single, solitary chick...
Sigh.
Now things get complicated.
We have:
One baby from Spock
Three babies from Blork
One baby from Melon

Melon's single chick...an only child

Spock's chick decided that, despite her disinterest, he wasn't ready to leave home, and determinedly followed her around for a week or two, snuggling up beside her at night, and generally keeping her company. He would give the plaintive cheep of a lost chick, and she would never respond, but he seemed to find her anyway.

Melon's chick - with foster-brother (or sister)!

Blork's babies were also lonely, and cheeping - and ignored by Blork. However, as the age difference wasn't so great - maybe a week - they quickly discovered that Melon was a much more attentive mother - and they have joined her and her single chick! We were worried that they might attack their younger foster-sibling...but they don't. In fact, they seem to have encouraged it to mature faster - given that it has to compete for food - it's become very speedy and confident, and sleeps at night huddled up with Melon and the three others - who are too big to get under her wings - although they did try at first...
Now they are pretty much independent, with Melon mostly ignoring them - and it is the foster-family who come running when the little one squeaks for company.
Life in the garden is never simple with these birds!

Blork's baby blues...

Meanwhile, while Spock's one surviving chick struggled on, Blork hatched seven new babies. The weather was good at first, and we thought this lot would do better than all the others who'd had to contend with the wettest, coldest Spring we'd had in years. But it was not to be. The rain came back, and one morning I came home to find five weak and freezing babies, desperately trying to catch up to their mother, who had come over for seeds and mealworms.  The sixth was dead, and the seventh had disappeared. Three fell over, and couldn't get up - one was barely able to move. I hastily gathered up Blork and two wet chicks and put them into our small cage, where she settled down to eat. I went back for the other three - and one was dead. I took the last two up to the house - one was in a very bad way and I doubted he would survive. I gave them to the kids to hold by the heater, and rushed back down to the garden to check on the others with their mum. Alas, in the time I'd taken to get to the house, one was dead. It was so quick - but it seems that once they get cold, they weaken incredibly fast. The one was huddled underneath their mother. Incredibly, both the chicks we warmed in the house recovered, and were put into the small cage. They all made it through the night, and are now about 3 weeks old.

Blork's brood - before the bad weather hit...

Happy mum providing a bit of cover

Spock's sad saga

Sometimes raising quail can be slightly traumatic - especially if you are soft-hearted and prone to worrying about hatchlings as if they were your own kids...
Spock finally hatched three little babies - one of which was all white (pale yellow). This one, naturally, was the kids' favourite - and the first to die. It lasted about four days, looking healthy - until one day it just wasn't healthy any more, and faded away. We don't know why. Natural selection - but the grief was strong as we all really wanted some variation in colour - all bar two of our birds are the standard Coturnix light brown patterning (Pharoah markings, I think) and well nigh impossible to tell apart! The remaining two seemed strong and happy - one was much bigger than the other, and we feared for the smaller one. Spock was a slightly indifferent mother, and refused to share her mealworms - whenever we gave her some she would scoff them immediately and never offer them to her chicks. Every other mother quail has given most of the mealworms to her babies...
Snowpea's four chicks - now about 8 weeks old  - formed a gang of four and terrorised Spock's two little ones. On one occasion I rescued the smaller hatchling which had been grabbed by the neck by one of the older gang, who was shaking it violently, while the others pecked at it. Horrid. None of the adult birds took much notice of the two babies - only the immature birds seemed to hunt them. The little one really struggled - whenever it got cold it collapsed on the ground, unable to move. Spock never seemed particularly concerned, and we kept finding it, cold and feebly chirping. We'd put it in a small cage with Spock overnight, and it would recover. This happened twice. Eventually Spock seemed to abandon any pretense at mothering. 

Spock - a beautiful girl, but lacking the mothering instinct!

 A few days later the smaller chick died, very suddenly - after having survived numerous near-death experiences. More grief.
Sadly, we have no photos of either of the two little ones...but there is one chick remaining - of which more will be told later!

The kids had a funeral for the little chick...

Brooding...

Spock's eggs still have not hatched...
How long should we wait before giving up??
We have built shelters over Melon and over Blork, so we currently have three girls sitting, comfortably sheltered from the wild weather and relentless rain. Naturally, after building the shelters, today we actually have some sunshine - albeit intermittently - and all the birds are sun-bathing, stretched out luxuriously in the warmth. The mums-to-be rush out from under cover, take a hurried dust bath, and return to their eggs. More rain due this afternoon.
Of Snowpea's brood of four, at least one is definitely a male, and another looks decidedly female - but then, until she started laying, we thought Spock was a boy.
We will give her another two or three days, and then break an egg to check what is happening.

Broody girls saga continues

Well, today Spock's eggs are due to hatch,, if all things are equal. When I went to check this morning Blork's nest was waterlogged and her eggs cold... She is not under shelter and we had over 17mm of rain last night! Poor old thing - I suspect her eggs may not make it. We will take a few and break them today to check progress, but I am certain this cycle of warming and cooling cannot be good.

However, back to Spock. She was off her eggs when I came into the garden, but they were still warm, so I fed her and assumed she would return as she usually does. I came back to the garden a couple of hours later, and she was off again, flying around in little leaps and hops, which is unusual behaviour for her. I wondered if her babies had hatched, and she was scared of them (anything is possible!) so I went to check. No hatching - but Melon was sitting on them! She left the nest as I bent down to look at her, and Spock came up immediately. Melon rushed at her and drove her away, returning to the eggs. Extraordinary behaviour. Spock hunted for a few worms in the waterlogged soil, but every time she came near the nest Melon fluffed up and gave a harsh, aggressive call, and Spock retreated. I kept telling myself "don't interfere" but Spock is thin and tired and has been devotedly sitting for nearly three weeks - it just didn't seem fair for Melon to take over at the last minute. I also worried that if the eggs hatch on schedule, Melon will get a shock (after sitting for such a short time her "broody hormones" cannot be ready to deal with chicks) and she will abandon the babies... So I shooed her off and Spock returned immediately. When I left Spock was angrily calling and attempting to protect her nest against repeated feints by Melon, who was remarkably persistent.
Melon was the quail who sat on the nest WITH Snowpea, when Snowpea hatched her second brood, and co-parented the chicks. Definitely an unusual bird.

Has anyone had experience of anything like this??? We'd love to hear from you if you have!

Broody girls update

Well, Greenpea seemed to completely lose interest in her eggs today, so we took them all. It was depressing seeing the little clutch lying there cold and abandoned. She hasn't been back to the nest since. We opened some of the eggs - the little blot that shows they are fertile has got a bit bigger, but that's all.  We were dreading finding a tiny chick - but she'd only been half-sitting a few days...
Hopefully she will sit again in a few weeks; more successfully this time!
We have worked out that the birds who have raised chicks, and are sitting now, are all of an older generation than Greenpea and Chickpea - so they may simply be too young.