Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'

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10

Jan

2018

One of my relations

Author: Jim Taylor

I have no sentimental feelings about California quail. But in my experience, they make chickens look like candidates for Mensa.

            We joke about chickens crossing the road. Around here, quail move in flocks. Sometimes so many they give an impression of the earth itself rippling in waves. 

            There is no such thing as a single quail. So if I see a solitary quail at the side of the road when I’m driving, I slow down.  That quail will certainly try to cross the road in front of me. At the last possible second. And it will equally certainly be followed by the rest of the flock. They could fly, but they won’t. They’ll erupt from the grass and underbrush like nerf balls, and scuttle on Roadrunner legs across the blacktop. 

            Except that when they’re almost across, they will decide they didn’t want to go there after all; they will turn, en masse, and head back — sometimes actually underneath my car. 

            No, I do not have a high opinion of quail intelligence. 



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