The scaled quail that live near our house travel in family groups. Tonight when our neighbor came home (our lot is a little over 2 acres, so we are not talking cramped circumstances here), one of our quail families came running across our recently mown desert grass, then our driveway, then our portal, all the while acting incredibly startled, alarmed, and put out that ANYONE would have the nerve to appear in their midst without advance notice. I realized that in aspect they remind me of the inhabitants of Meerkat Manor. All righty then, that is my Living With Nature observation for today: meerkats and scaled quail are similar in their neurotic behavior. I'm from Lower Manhattan. I was raised Catholic. Honey, I KNOW NEUROSIS.
Quail photo from enature.com. Meerkat photo by Robert Stacy, www.meerkats.com.
