It is the spring evening and the seventh anniversary of my mother's death from cancer is approaching, a death that marked the end of my biological family. I want to text my friend Margot, who lost her father to AIDS in the spring of years ago, and ask: “How did we survive this awful loss? Bestie, how do we keep moving forward?
And then I look out the window of my little red cabin nestled among Oregon spruces and white oaks and see the neighborhood flock of wild turkeys moving down the street. They head to a hill which they use as a runway to fly towards the trees where they sleep at night. They are spectacular: two males in full mating attire, wings spread and wattles glowing red and blue in the setting sun while three drab females walk serenely behind. But tonight, I am transfixed by the bird following them: a single quail.
“Jonathan!” I shout to my husband and he comes out to the porch to confirm the quail. “Is he part of the flock?” I wonder. “And if so, how?”
As they have done every night for years, each turkey starts running, then flies over our heads like pterodactyls, over our neighbors' Subarus and trash cans, landing on branches a hundred feet high. The quail waits until the last turkey has fallen asleep. Then, without fanfare, she gently levitates to the oak tree above him to sleep for the night.
Jonathan and I have seen this quail perched on the rooftops and heard their calls. Bird watchers say the call sounds like “Chi-ca-go! girl-go!” My husband disagrees. He thinks the quail has been shouting: “More here! On here!”
“He has lost his flock,” he concludes.
For years, a flock of quail graced our neighborhood. They lived in the blackberry bush at the end of the road and roamed our gardens in a small, bubbly gang with their bow feathers moving as they ate seeds and leaves. But this year they are no longer there.
With sickening sadness I realize that Jonathan is right: this quail has lost its comrades. For one reason or another, they have disappeared and he has been left behind.
I set my alarm for turkey roosting time the next night, and when it goes off, I go out with my binoculars. At the appointed time, the flock struts up the street, the males with flight feathers spread, spectacularly scraping the asphalt, and the females stopping to browse the neighbors' rhododendrons. The quail runs on its tiny legs to keep up. He again waits for the turkeys to fall asleep and then flies to his oak tree to spend the night. Now, with even more curiosity, I turn to social networks.
“What's going on with this quail?” I ask in a regional Facebook birding group, including a photo. The post receives so many comments that the site awards me the “Top Contributor” badge. The answers range from scientific to hilarious. A man explains that quail and turkeys represent the smallest and largest species of the order Galliformes, which are terrestrial birds that forage on the ground and travel in groups for protection.
Someone else writes: “My interpretation of that photo is that the quail is rich and has hired some muscular birds to protect himself against kidnapping. Even a cat in the wild would have doubts about an ambush.” Good call. My neighborhood is full of free-range cats.
A woman says, “We need a limerick or a haiku to make sense of it.”
Another woman responds quickly:
A solitary quail wanders.
In the hills, he sees turkeys.
She has found her husbands.
I communicate on Instagram with ornithologist James Maley, whom I heard on the scientific podcast “Ologies.“ Explain that quail and turkeys share similar vocalizations and actions. “A friend was telling me that he had the same thing happen with a peacock and a flock of turkeys,” she writes of the phenomenon in my neighborhood. “I guess they see each other as friends.”
Coming home the next week with the car full of purchases and my heart full of pain from the death of my mother, I see the turkeys one street from mine. Without the quail. My heart sinks, and there he is, trotting out of the English ivy in someone's front yard and running down the hill toward the turkeys that have just disappeared around the corner.
Now, an entire community has invested in the well-being of this unique quail with enough chutzpah to roll with turkeys 25 times its size. Neighbors compare sightings. I post bi-weekly updates on Facebook to get an enthusiastic response.
After I post my last photo, a member of the birding group comments. “Family. It's more than blood. He has been adopted.”
His words make me think of courage, of resilience: of how we always have the option, once our initial grief is over, to go out on our thin little legs to find a new flock, a replacement for the one that has disappeared. It's not ideal, but it's something. It might even bring us joy.
I want to perch on my rooftop and shout, “Over here! Here!” to the void my mother left. Then, maybe, if I'm lucky, a passing flock will find me, offering me protection, camaraderie, and inspiration to keep moving forward.
Melissa Hart He is the author, most recently, of “Better with Books: 500 Diverse Books to Build Empathy and Promote Self-Acceptance in Tweens and Teens.”
