Cheep Shots

My, how they've grown.  These were the quail chicks at the end of May.  The picture is kind of blurry, but you can see how at this point they still took a lot of rest breaks very close to a parent.

Then early June they'd already grown quite a bit.  Now there were five--down from the original ten or eleven, but at least this number has stayed consistent.

On this day after feeding for awhile, the chicks huddled together in the warm sunshine..

..while Mama kept watch above them.  This is the last picture I have of her; she has disappeared.  Dad still brings the chicks around and does a very good job of tending them by himself.

I managed to get a close up of a couple of them.  You can see the little head feathers beginning to sprout.

Now late June.  The chicks were nearly half-size and head feathers becoming much more pronounced.

Still the end of June.  Their tail feathers have grown and they have lost much of their down.

This is the latest picture of the family.  The chicks are nearly grown--very close to the size of Dad.  Everyone still comes around together, but each day the chicks are more difficult to distinguish from the adults.  I wonder how much longer till they graduate.

It's been fun to watch these guys.  We've talked about how we wish they had little name tags so we could tell them apart more easily.  It would be interesting to see which keep coming back after they've grown and maybe have chicks of their own.