In California, Quail are the fourth most popular game species in terms of the amount of time that hunters spend in their pursuit.  They provide the second highest yield in terms of hunter success, with the mourning dove taking top honors.  From 1993 to the present, an average of 172,000 quail hunters in the Golden State have bagged about 1,712,000 birds per year, with five percent of the take being the Gamble's quail, twenty percent of the take being mountain quail, and seventy-five percent consisting of valley quail.

Of the three quail species native to California, the valley quail is the most widely distributed.  Abundant populations coupled with ample hunting opportunities are part of the reason why the valley quail makes up such a large portion of the total number of quail taken by hunters in the Golden State.

The habits of valley quail and the habitat that they live in also have something to do with the fact that most of the quail taken in California are valley quail, rather than one of the other native species.  As their common name implies, they tend to prefer less rugged terrain than mountain quail do.  Valley quail hold well for dogs, and they are more willing flyers than mountain quail are.

Identification

The valley quail (Callipepla californica) is about 9 to 11 inches in length, with an average weight of about 6 to 7 ounces for both sexes.

The male is more colorful than the female.  Males have a black throat circled with a white line, while the top of their heads is dark brown with a plume of short, black, curved feathers.  Males have a chestnut-colored patch in the middle of the stomach area, with a scaled breast.  The sides of the male are gray to bluish gray, streaked with white dashes.  The female is similar, but has a plume about half the size of the male, and a brown-gray head that lacks all of the white and black markings of the male.

Habitat

The valley quail is normally associated with a combination of brushy vegetation and more open grassy or weedy habitat in relatively close proximity to a reliable source of surface water.  They are most commonly found at altitudes of less than 6,000 feet where they occur in mountainous country.  The kind of habitat that they are most commonly found in is perhaps best described as desert scrub.

Forage is typically abundant throughout the valley quail's range.  During the fall, the most important forage items to valley quail are the seeds of legumes, weeds, and grasses, as well as the fruits and leaves of woody plants.  Once winter rains have started, their diet changes to one consisting primarily of the green leaves of forbs, clovers, and grasses.  While these kinds of forage items are typically plentiful in valley quail country, they can become scarce as a result of drought or overgrazing on the part of the birds themselves, or they may become inaccessible due to a lack of cover.

To a large degree, one of the things that separates highly productive valley quail habitat from the ho-hum is having plenty of the right kind of cover.  Valley quail typically avoid the kind of truly nasty and thick chaparral that mountain quail can thrive in, and while they need cover for the protection it provides them from the elements and predation, they prefer the kind of habitat where there is some space between the brush.  The mantra that many seasoned valley quail hunters adhere to is "if you can't walk through it, valley quail will have little to do with it."

Without the right kind of cover, valley quail can quite literally starve to death in spite of the fact that they are surrounded by forage.  Immediately prior to the general season, and for most of the first half of it, valley quail will rarely venture more than 50 feet from cover.  In the late fall and winter months, they might venture out as far as 20 yards from cover, but they'll rarely be farther from it than that.

Roosting cover typically consists of some form of dense evergreen or shrub that allows them to perch a few feet off the ground.

Throughout most of their range, valley quail will require a reliable source of surface water.  Early in the season, they'll rarely be found more than about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile away from water, and they'll typically be found much closer to it than that.  The major exception occurs with populations of valley quail in the Central Coast region of the state, as there are some populations of quail within it that can obtain all of the hydration they need from dew and succulent vegetation. 

A Valley Quail's Day

The valley quail is a social animal.  Throughout most of the year, including the hunting season, they spend the bulk of their time in coveys that can consist of 50 or more individuals in really good years.  These coveys are typically formed in August or September, when several family groups made up of parents and offspring merge to form a larger group.

Once this happens, the quail in these coveys perform all of their daily activities as a group.  They roost together at night.  They wake up in the morning together.  They go to their first water of the day together.  They feed together.

As previously noted, valley quail prefer to roost in dense evergreens or shrubs, and the ideal roosting habitat will be found in relatively close proximity to a reliable source of surface water.  At some time between first light and sunrise, the covey will rise from the roost.  However, if the weather is particularly cold, wet, and nasty, they may not come off the roost as early as they normally do.

Just before the covey leaves the roost, one of the males will typically give off a couple of the species distinctive assembly calls -a kind of semi-metallic sounding "chi CA go" which helps any birds that may have been separated from the covey in finding their way back to it.  It also helps upland hunters find them.

After the assembly calls have been given, the covey will drop to the ground.  In hotter weather, their first order of business will be to head for water, either by walking to it single-file -typically in the bottom of a moderately brushy draw- or flying to it.  In more moderate weather conditions, they may feed their way to water.  If the weather is damp, they may skip their morning watering altogether.

They'll spend the first couple of hours after sunrise feeding almost literally non-stop.  Their feeding will then become more sporadic for about 1 to 3 hours thereafter.  Once they have finished with their morning feeding, they will either covey up together in a good siesta spot and rest while they digest the contents of their crop, or they may spread out a little in loafing cover in singles and pairs. During the last two to four hours of daylight, they will covey up again if they have dispersed a bit, and commence to feed their way back their roosting area, typically stopping to water before hitting the roost at twilight with a full crop.  They will definitely make a water stop prior to roosting if the weather is hot and dry.  If it is damp and cool, they will most likely continue feeding and skip the watering altogether.

Valley quail tend to be most active early in the morning and late in the afternoon, and the most consistantly successful valley quail hunters tend to be early risers who are in the field an hunting during the gray light of the pre-dawn hours.  That said, when you get a feel for how these birds use their habitat and relate to their environment, you can still manage to add a few to the daily bag in the middle of the day.

Success in hunting valley quail doesn't have to be predicated on happenstance and chance.  Spending a little time in the off-season, in the few weeks prior to opening day, can reap huge dividends and stack the odds of doing well in your favor. It is one thing to read about how quail relate to their environment.  It is quite another to actually observe them doing it.