3rd June: Day of the Quail

Today is the Day of the Quail in the French Revolutionary Calendar. 10 things you may not know about these birds:

1. The quail is a relative of the Pheasant. There are 130 types of quail worldwide.
2. Quail produce high pitched sounds, cackles and grunts that are used for communication. Their cries have given rise to a number of folklore tales: hearing quail in the evening means good weather next day. In Tyrol, the number of quail cries you hear is the number of years before you will marry, while in Swabia, the price of corn was decided by the number of times the quail cried.
3. Quail can lay 10 to 20 eggs at one time. If you find a nest with exactly twelve eggs in it, that is a sign of prosperity.
4. They are omnivores. Their diet consists mainly of seeds, leaves, wheat, barley, berries and occasionally grasshoppers and worms.
5. Many species of quail have a crest or plume on their heads, which bobs when they walk. Some species of quail are equipped with heel spurs - bony structures used for protection against predators.
6. They are ground birds, living and nesting on the ground. They can fly, but only short distances and generally choose not to. When threatened, they run. Which can be very annoying when they try to run away from your car, straight up the road ahead of you!
7. Sometimes they are solitary, or they may be found in family groups called coveys. Quail families are strict about mealtimes - 30 minutes after sunrise and 30 minutes before sunset, and in the same place every day. When eating in a covey, one individual acts as a lookout to alert the others to any danger.
8. The state bird of California is the California quail. Quail are also used as clan animals in some Native American tribes. The Mohave tribe has a quail clan. Some tribes, including the Creek and Cherokee, have a Quail Dance.
9. An old wives tale exists that quail meat is so rich that if you ate one every day for 30 days it would kill you. In 1958, a Texas lawyer named Byron Lockhart set out to disprove this. He ate broiled quail for breakfast for 31 days and survived, although he did put on six pounds.
10. In German folklore, farmers would keep quail as protection against Lightning.