Early morning California quail, Mill Canyon, CA

I caught this scruffy fellow just as the morning sun was beginning to light up the western side of Mill Canyon, on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada Range. By the way, the air was fairly still this morning; this guy's feathers were sticking out all over the place on their own.

Mill Canyon is located off highway 395, just south of the Little Antelope State Wildlife preserve. Mill Creek flows north out of Jeffrey Pine-covered foothills into sage scrub dotted with pinyon snags left over from a fire that came through some unknown time before. It's a very picturesque canyon with a fairly diverse population of breeding birds. Last year we found a pair of Lewis' woodpeckers here, and I was hoping they would be here again this time around, but no such luck. This is only the first of three counts that will happen in Mill Canyon this year though, so there is still time for them to show up and get their breeding on. I'm crossing my fingers.