That male Mountain Quail picture was taken by Calvin Lou.  His comment when he submitted it to towhee.net: “elusive.”  You can say that again.  Many times I heard these birds on the slopes of Mount Ashland.  Last spring I was showing around a small group of Bay Area birders visiting Ashland and around 4500-feet  of elevation we heard a male Mountain Quail repeatedly calling.  They have a sharp single note call.  The kind of note the movie Indians make as they surround a wagon train.  Of course, we never saw a single Mountain Quail feather.  They were somewhere off in the brush.  I’d always imagined I would be driving along a mountain higheway and one would flush, flying or scurrying across the road.  That’s how many of my friends have seen them.  But this evening it happened without warning.

My wife and I had taken the dog for a walk on a dirt trail just across the canyon from our house.  The area overlooks busy Lithia Park here in Ashland and is below 2500-feet.  As we turned a corner I saw quail scurrying through the underbrush.  I immediately thought “California Quail” as they are plentiful in the area at this elevation.  There’s no snow on the mountains yet so I didn’t even imagine it could be anything else.  But I did have my binocs and one close look revealed the twin upright feathers on one male’s head, like a miniarture peace sign pointed at the sky.  Then I saw those unmistakable white stripes along the side of the belly.  I saw three, all males, and they hustled off into thre manzanita and vanished, silently.  It was a lifer as I have steadfastly refused to count this species despite many “hearings” as I insisted on getting a sighting.  So this 13th of October was my lucky day.

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We had some busy days in the garden this week, as nights get clolder and more winter birds move into town.  I heard a Hermit Thursh scolding from deep within the Scouler willow.Several times I have seen that thursh around town.  Anb oak just down the street from us must be especially acorn-rich this fall as the Acorn Woodpckers have been around it continuously this week.  American Robins, a Red-breasted Nuthatch, Ruby-crowned Kinglet and a lone juvenile Pine Siskin were all season firsts for our gardent his week.

The feeders have been especially busy on sunny days like today.  The Siskin shared a thistle seed feeder with a Lesser Goldfinch.  Sometimes one or two feeders will be flocked by the little goldfinches.  They act like eight year olds at a birthday cake.  Eager and pushy. Sometimes three or more will crowd onto a single eating perch.  Not aggressive  but just clumsy in their excitement.  They understand sharing as an idea but are simply not clear on the procedure, one or more getting oopsed off the perch by others.

The Downy Woodpecker goes strictly to the suet feeder.  Today he shared peacefully with one of the more gutsy Bushtits.  The busting Bushtits busily bounced from branch to branch, first in the willow, then a grapevine, then the crabapple, later the Scot’s pine in front of the house.   Other sharing takes place each morning when Stella the Steller comes to the window and requests demands her morning peanuts.  She always screams out her public announcement that the peanuts are being served, thus bringing both more Steller’s and one or two Western Scrubs.  Stella fits two peanuts, end to end, in her throat and beak and flies off to cache her booty, then returns for more. 

Other sharing goes on at the bird baths, the Juncos being highly energetic with their ablutions.  But raise no objection if a goldfinch or two is drinking at the opposite side of the pool.  A bathing Junco gets into the bath up to his lower chest, dips his head down so water runs down his back and simultaneously flutters both wings, waterdrops flying in all directions.

There are numerous gregarious birds about: Bushtits always in their whispering flocks for fall and winter.  The Juncos who sometimes arrive like a flurry and drift about like sooty snowflakes, swirling over the ground before settling to feed, then rising in another circular flight.  Maybe they are more like little wind-blown clouds of dry leaves.  Something we do not have right now as it’s ben raining and the forest is for more and mroe rain this week. The Lesser Goldfinches feed in groups and call in groups, perhaps discussing my food supply.  Robins clearly roost in groups as I can see them on clear mornings rousting themselves from the tall dense fir and pines up the hill.  Somewhere to the north is a major Crow roost. One morning I stopped counting at 100 as small groups of five to fifteen fluttered overhead heading southward.  Several evenings I have seen ones and twos and small flocks of Crows heading back in along the same sky trail.

The Mallards and Wood Ducks in the park pond just across the street from our house are never alone or even in small groups.  There are at least forty Wood Ducks and over 120 Mallards.  They quack, sleep, swim and mill about in flocks.  Though it’s not accurate to say Wood Ducks quack.  They have a three note whistle, higher pitched and more musical than an American Wigeon.  The males right now are in fresh plumage and are eye-catching no matter how many times you see them.

But the most gregarious in habit of the birds I see regularly are Cedar Waxwings.  Hundreds of them must be wintering here.   This week I saw a flock of six moving over our garden and then they landed in hearby pine with two bare branches near the top.  Neither branch was more than two feet long.  Then two other small groups fluttered in.  Some almost all twenty of the Waxwings were trying to fit onto those two small branches, inadequate to hold the whole group, so some kept fluttering off one end or the other, then having to settle down on a nearby but obviously inferior perch.

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One evening we watched the Striped Skunk search our garden, then the compost pile for delectations.  He seemed pleased.  Theundulating walk, his bushy tail wider and longer than his body.  The v-shaped wite stripe pattern with the opint just above his pointy nose made him look like some creature sjuited for the Indy 500, but his movement was all non-chalance and casual.  He must know that nobody would pester him,  though my sister-in-law did surprise a skunk recently in our carport and got sprayed as a result.