Male California Quail close up, Davis County, UtahMale California Quail close up – Nikon D500, f10, 1/500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light

Anytime I am able to take a close up or a portrait of a wild bird without stressing it I relish the opportunity because the images can show the exquisite details of the fine plumage of the face of the subject that photos taken from a longer distance away just can’t show as well.

Four days ago I was able to take close up photos of a handsome male California Quail in beautiful light while he perched on a fence rail as he looked directly towards me. I love that I can almost count the individual brownish feathers above his bill and each of the white-tipped feathers of his nape along with being able to see the separation of the soft gray feathers of his upper breast. The scaly looking feathers on his breast? They are gorgeous. Being able to see all of those fine details in an image helps me appreciate the beauty of this species even more than I already do.

Side note… I will be moving my site to a new, faster server before the end of December. There may be a period of time when my site is unreachable while the DNS repopulates throughout the internet so I wanted to share that information now before it occurs. If my site is unreachable, please try again later. Because I have been blogging for so long my site is huge and it is going to take time for me to move the files to the new server.

Life is good.

Mia

Click here to see more of my California Quail photos plus facts and information about this species.