I don’t know if this will interest chat line readers, anyway here goes nothing.
While strolling on Lake Ginninderra foreshore yesterday afternoon thunder rumbled away to the West and virga veiled yon blue line of ranges but nary a blush of lightning or a raindrop reached us (we were back home before the storm came through).
Suddenly a Brown Quail scampered out of grass and ran to within 2m (I’m reluctant to say 3 – it was very close) of our feet before swerving away. As the quail ran it appeared disoriented, running in erratic little circles before re-entering grass 20m away. Perhaps a cat or dog had frightened it. But if that was the case why didn’t it take flight? Maybe it was luring a predator away from young? If quail do that.
I had the intuitive feeling that something less tangible than a terrestrial marauder was influencing the quail’s behaviour, and thought of zugunruhe, a word coined by German ornithologist, Gustav Kramer, to describe pre-migration excitement – see, I’ve been reading Bernd Heinrich. OK, so maybe Brown Quail are nomadic rather than migratory.
As we returned to the car we glimpsed a couple more quail as they emerged onto the bike path and scooted about haphazardly.
Writing about Grey Teal in BOOM & BUST Bird Stories For A Dry Country David Roshier mentions that thunderstorms generate low frequency sound, infra sound that can be detected over many hundreds of kilometres by birds to navigate.
In addition to infra sound, the L. Ginninderrra quail were being subjected to old Thor’s muffled hammer beats that were reaching our human ears.
I’m reminded of reading someone’s memoirs of life on a country estate in southern England c.1915. During clear days distant thunder was heard but no storms eventuated. Around the same time gamekeepers reported that “ ... birds are acting queer, running about willy-nilly, deserting their nests and chicks.” Turns out that the ‘distant thunder’ was the sound of artillery barrages taking place on the battle fields of France which weren’t all that far away as the proverbial crow flies.
Well that’s about all I wanted to say. Did I detect a sigh of relief, or maybe I’m picking up infra sound from yesterday’s storm.
John K. Layton
Holt.
