Sisters Country birds By Douglas Beall Correspondent The mountain quail (Oreortyx pictus) is the largest quail in the United States. I found these colour- ful quail on the shoulders of Mt. Jefferson, and while waiting for a good oppor- tunity to capture an image from my truck, had one sit- ting on a log staring at me and he did not blink for 40 minutes. In foothills and moun- tains of the far west, cov- eys of these striking birds scurry through the man- zanita thickets. Mountain quail are often overlooked, because they keep to dense cover; when approached, they often sit motionless in the brush, where they are very difficult to spot. The nest is a simple scrape made by the male, concealed in vegetation, often at the base of a tree and usually close to water. Breeding among mountain quail is monoga- mous and the female lays 8-15 creamy pinkish eggs. Incubation lasts 21-25 days, usually performed by the female, rarely by the male. The chicks begin feeding immediately, with insects being the majority of their diet until they slowly add vegetation. They have a wide vari- ety of foraging techniques. They often pick up items from the ground, scratch- ing among leaf litter and use their feet to dig for bulbs, also they climb in shrubs and trees to pick berries. Although their secretive nature makes it difficult to accurately census, they have clearly experienced a great decline in the past 50 years in parts of their range. A group of quails has many collective nouns, including a