Living and Birding Gratitude: I Love Button-quail!

James' photo of the Red-backed Button-quail. We did it!

"I love Button-quail" is not a sentence I would ever have expected to write. Yes, I did at one time refer to that whole family of birds as “bucking-futton-quail.” That is because they certainly tended to be difficult birds for me. Lynn and I still have nightmares remembering searching, and searching, and searching Inskip Point, Queensland for almost a week without a glimpse of the Black-breasted Button-quail. Even though a friend had seen them there three days before we arrived. This tale is told in Chapter 25 of the first book.

On Thursday night, 28 January, I saw a Facebook post by Bruce Watts and Jeff Jones regarding seeing, and taking some gorgeous photos of a Red-backed Button-quail. This was up near Nabiac, New South Wales the night before. I contacted Jeff and he shared the location and details with me. I really wanted that bird, but I knew it was a longshot. It was my granddaughter, Delilah’s birthday on Saturday and James was out of town for the weekend. So, plans were made to leave Monday arvo. It is about 1350 kilometres to the birding site.

James arrived at noon, and after picking up some groceries we headed up to stay a night at Glenrowan Caravan Park (the home of Turquoise Parrots). We rolled into the park about 4pm and set Troopi up to camp in a beautiful area under a tree out the back where I have camped before. And yes we saw Turquoise Parrots as we always do there. I was also quite flattered that the park owner, Kylee, came over to Troopi for me to autograph her copy of “An Australian Birding Year.”

We had a peaceful, lovely night’s sleep inside Troopi. It was the first time I had slept in her in well over a year. The next morning we drove on to stay the night at Robert and Judy Shore’s in Parkes. We arrived in the later arvo and had a delicious dinner and a wonderful visit with the Shores. I do wish they lived closer. I would love to see them both more often.

Wednesday morning we headed for Nabiac, but first we checked into one of my favourite motels in Australia. We arrive early arvo at the Mount View Motel in Buladelah where I had reserved a room. We would be using Troopi as transport, not accommodation. The rooms there are excellent and so reasonable. Our room with two beds and a kitchenette was only a hundred bucks. Not knowing how long our quest might take, we asked to if it was possible to keep it for two nights if necessary. It was and we did.

I was able to grab a short nap before we drove the 40 minutes to the area near Nabiac where Jeff was meeting us at 7pm. Just a few kilometres from the coordinates we flushed a probable RBBQ off the shoulder. We arrived where Jeff and Bruce had seen the birds on the 27th and soon Jeff joined us. After parking, we saw a few Brown Quail and flushed another possible RBBQ. In a later examination of James’ photos it was indeed revealed to be an RBBQ crossing the road.

Jeff arrived and we went to the spot where he and Bruce had seen them, and the birds were calling! Even I could hear the distinctive, ascending, oom, oom, oom, oom, oom call. It was not far from us either. We heard at least 3 separate birds in there, but none were interested in coming out and being seen. Once it was full dark, they stopped calling, not a sound out of them. We trudged about in the very wet brush in hopes of flushing one without success. We bid Jeff farewell and he went home, and we went back our motel.

I got into my comfortable bed about 11pm and as I checked my phone, I saw that Victoria had gotten a locally acquired case of COVID and new restrictions were coming into effect. Damn. I managed to go to sleep but at 2am I awoke and before I could go back to sleep, I remembered the virus news and anxiety shot through me like an electric shock. And that was that for any more sleep for me. Less than three hours, damn. I finally woke James at five and we drove up to Nabiac for first light. We went back to the same spot and soon heard them calling again! But even though one sounded pretty close, we could not see it. We moved about trying to locate it as it got later and lighter, but it continued calling. We headed out to the road, walking back to Troopi and I suggested that James walk into the shoulder a little to see if he might flush one. And in less than a minute a Red-backed Button-quail erupted at his feet and flew across the road. It was a quick view, but it was a RBBQ! It disappeared into the bush.

We heard calling again and walked down the road toward the area that the calls were coming from. There was a track going in that was covered in water (there was heaps of standing water everywhere). We stood at the gate for that track and heard it calling again. Then, only about ten metres in front of us, she flew diagonally across the track. It was a beautifully coloured female, they are the more colourful of the two. We both had heart stopping, gorgeous, full on side views of the bird. The sun was behind us and I will never forget that beautiful bird. She landed in the scrub well on the other side of the track and disappeared of course. Sweet!

We listened to that bird call sporadically for a while before walking back to Troopi. We were both soaked from the knees down from walking through the wet brush. I got into the back of Troopi to change pants and James saw “something” run across the road in front of the vehicle in the same spot where he flushed the bird on the road shoulder. He went and looked and an RBBQ had crossed the road and stopped for a moment in the grass. He got a photo! Joy, joy, joy. As James and I say after a successful twitch or what-have-you, “We did it!” We actually continue to say it many times over the coming days because we did! There were still RBBQ calling. I reckon they are more of a diurnal bird.

James' wonderful photo, but heavily cropped.

Lifer Pie courtesy of James

I was stupid-tired and we drove back to the motel where I took a short nap. Then we went to a spot that Liam Murphy had given us the coordinates for and we found James his Lifer Mangrove Gerygone and I took a couple of photos of it.

After an excellent night’s sleep, we drove to a stormy Gundagai where we stayed before driving back home on Saturday. And yes indeed I will say it again, we did it!