LIVE Nature Webcam
It was clearly a day for adventure, although one could not see that at mere daybreak. They opened their eyes in a hurry and scrambled wherever large shadows wafted and voices chirped. Where ever their toothpick sized legs would take them, they would go.Their travels resembled flying, but at ground level. They had to remain in their flock. Unsure of any danger, they still feared, as it was instinctual. They ate what they were led to and drank where there was water. Like a string of bubbly little pearls against the desert dust, they trickled over the terrain. Back and forth from east to west, a short quarter of a mile route, from sun up to sun down, they searched for food and took cover under trees, burrowing dugouts near the base of rocks to huddle a squat and cool off. They were a fuzzy family, dirt bound and determined.
Mom and Dad would always be on the lookout for any dangers near or far, yet they had to challenge the chicks to steer left and steer right and hop over this twig and duck under that branch. They led them up a strong incline and made them fly off the edge. They noticed that Barnabus and Skiddaddle would often fall behind and they were tired of running back to get them all the time. They decided it was time to dump them off, sort of speak. So they led them to the pond over near that Lady’s house. They hopped up and perched themselves on the adobe wall that framed the pond, over the little patch of shrubs where bushes and flowers grew. Calling with that demanding cackle, the parents called the chicks to the top of the wall with them. They stood proudly, but quickly fell over with the slightest breeze, down into the garden patch, surrounded by the adobe wall. As soon as all their chicks were inside the patch, Mom and Dad both jumped out again and called on their way over the wall, outside. All their chicks, except Barnabus and Skiddaddle cleared out of the patch.
Barnabus and Skiddaddle jumped and jumped, but could not get to the top of the wall. They chirped and chirped, calling for help continuously as their pin-sized hearts began to pound with that built -in adrenalin. The two little baby quail were trapped behind the wall of the garden. Skiddaddle scurried around the wall of the garden, jumping up at a shorter wall but still not reaching the top. Barnabus could not see too well and searched for Skiddaddle by following the sound of his chirps. Both resembled dry, dirty cotton balls fluttering around under the thick bush. One could barely see them, they camouflage so well. Barnabus chirped, but did so because Skiddaddle seemed to be in a panic, chirping his head off. “HELP! HELP! WE’RE TRAPPED!”
Barnabus was just asking, “Hey, what’s the matter Skid? Where are we? What happened to Mom and Dad? Who is that Lady talking to us? What is she saying?”
Skiddaddle replies quickly running in circles until he stops, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I think we’re in big trouble.”
Barnabus and Skiddaddle ran quickly to the other end of the garden. They could hear their parents just a few yards away, demanding they come over the wall. So, they continued to try, jumping as high as they could, but they could not reach the top. Barnabus was getting tired and wondered away from the wall. Skiddaddle ran to all the other sides , jumping and chirping, hoping his parents would suddenly appear. He heard a strange voice calling him, talking to him calmly. When he looked up with his tiny pinhole of an eye, he saw the face of the Lady staring back at him and smiling.
“Don’t worry.” She said. “I’ll get you out of there.”
But when she got closer and her arm swooped down toward him, the breeze blew him in the other direction and he ran chirping as far away as he could get, taking cover under the bush. He chirped to alarm Barnabus who seemed to be taking a nap in the shade.
“Barnabus! Wake up! I think we are being hunted.” Skiddaddle chirped, running in circles around the branches. “We’ve got to stay alert.”
Barnabus shook his head. “I’m tired. Please let me sleep for a little while.”
Skiddaddle wabled around on his stiff legs, “Barnabus, this is no time to sleep. Look, I’m going to try to get out over there as soon as that Lady goes away. You better be right behind me or you might be eaten.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, go on then, Skiddaddle.”
“I’m going.” Skiddaddle threatened, but he was very afraid. “I’m going to leave you here if you don’t get up.”
“Go on then.” Barnabus chirped back. “I can find my own way.”
Skiddaddle turned his tail on his brother and scurried over to the opposite end and to his surprise found a magical bright blue, soft trodden pathway that he could climb over. As he moved swiftly across the pass, he thought, “That’s funny. I don’t remember that being here before.” But he moved on, forgetting his brother. He ran out, away from the pond to find his parents, chirping all the way.
Skiddaddle is free
The lady stood in her doorway happily muttering, “Yeah! He found the towel-way.”
Barnabus woke up from his nap. Skiddaddle was gone and it was very quiet. As he looked up towards the wall, a branch or stick like object rather floated in above his head and landed on the ground nearby. It rested there and he watched it, but didn’t feel like doing anything. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Lady standing on the other side of the wall. He slipped quietly under the branches to hide. He could hear her speaking and his parents calling, but he stayed very still, wondering what he should do. “If I get eaten, my parents will kill me.” He thought.
He was so frightened he didn’t want to go very far away from the protection of the bush branches. He tried to creep away from the wondering stick. He climbed up over a few small rocks that lined the pond and suddenly there came a drift and he wafted up and over, landing on a lily pad in the middle of the pond. He gasped with fear as he made a small splash, head first into a puddle on the lily pad. It was more water than he could swallow, so he spit it back out. In a daze he wabbled forward on the lily pad. The lady was guiding the pad over to the side of the pond with the stick and then quickly cupped her hand around his tiny puff of a body and cast him away from the pond.
Barnabus was safe and alive and out of the pond. He didn’t think the lady wanted to eat him. She would have done so by now, but his parents taught him to run away, take cover under a branch. He was still a little woozy while he listened for his parents whom were waiting for him across the way. He rested in the shade until his breath came back and then he chirped on out, back into the world.
The Lady waved good-bye. “See you tomorrow!”
Barnabus lives!
