|
Mountain Quail
Oreortyx pictus
|
- Ore-ortyx - from Greek oros: mountain, and ortyx: quail
In the book To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession By Dan Koeppel, the author talks about his father's quest to literally, see every species of bird on earth. The father is quite remote from the son, due to his birding obsession. The son, eager to please his father, tells the father that he (the son) can deliver a mountain quail sighting at his place. The father then explains the concept of nemesis birds (the birds we never are able to see for one fluke-ish reason or another). The numerous failed attempts to see the ephemeral quail becomes the metaphor for the father and son's inability to reach each other and connect.
John Muir on the other hand, loved mountain quail (of course)...In his piece "My First Summer in the Sierra" he talks about Lake Tenaya's enchantments in Yosemite: "The mountain quail I often meet in my walks - a small brown partridge with a very long, slender, ornamental crest worn jauntily like a feather in a boy's cap, giving it a very marked appearance..."
I'd go the extra mile and then some to see this lovely and very elusive creature. Wouldn't you?
|
|
Focal length: 700 mm
fStop: 5.6
ISO: 1600
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec.
|
|
Bassetts, CA - Bassetts Fire Storage Terminal
|
|
May 20, 2010
|
|
