Not long after I moved to SLC last summer, I met a little covey of neighbors: Quentin Quail†† and family. I’d never seen a California Quail before, and here were whole families of them, clicking and scrambling, sprinting across the roads, fluttering up onto rooftops and into trees.

Not until this spring, though, did I realize many of them moved up the slopes to have little quails. Nowadays dog and I encounter them all along the trails we hike each morning.

They’re a little skittish, a little talkative—but all in all pretty likable neighbors.

††Quentin Quail was a character in a Chuck Jones cartoon for Merry Melodies released in 1946.

Grandeur Peak Area List
Beginning at 7:30 a.m., I hiked several hundred feet up a mountain.

1. Black-billed Magpie*
2. Lazuli Bunting
3. Song Sparrow** (v)
4. Black-chinned Hummingbird
5. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
6. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay
7. Pine Siskin
8. California Quail*
9. Spotted Towhee
10. Black-capped Chickadee**
11. Black-headed Grosbeak
12. American Robin*
13. Lesser Goldfinch** (v)
14. Black-throated Gray Warbler (v)
15. MacGillivray’s Warbler (v)
16. Warbling Vireo
17. Chipping Sparrow (v)
18. House Finch
19. Turkey Vulture

Elsewhere

20. Eurasian Collared Dove
21. European Starling
22. House Sparrow
23. Rock Pigeon
24. American Crow

Mammals

Rock Squirrel

(v) Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere