The Birds and the Beads

There's a park a couple blocks from where I live. Due to the proximity to a wastewater treatment plant, some days there's a really funky odor coming from this park and it's unbearable to go anywhere near it. Other days, it's perfectly pleasant. Yet the malodorous nightmare really keeps people away and this park is fairly deserted. It's too bad because it's right on the water and when it's too hot to move you can usually catch enough of a breeze to want a light sweater.

I was sitting there, keeping cool under the shade of a huge oak tree and this guy pops up nearby.



...and then another and another. A family of four of these odd quails that I have never seen before. At first, I thought they were Bobwhites, which is the only native quail in this area. On second look, they look nothing like a bobwhite at all.



They walk around the park nervously, clucking to each other constantly, pausing to scratch the earth and nibble on the tasty bugs they stir up.



After some consultation with WhatBird.com and a mystery bird flickr pool, it was concluded that this is a family of Chukars. They are native to the Mideast, India and Nepal and there is an intorduced population of them way out west. How they ended up in Brooklyn is a mystery.

Aside for tracking down exotic species, I've been busy listing pretty jewelry on my Etsy site.















Most of them are one of a kind originals- I have a couple reoccurring themes but I tend to not repeat myself. They are all very reasonably priced and rather stunning. I will be listing more in the coming days as I have quite a stack of them to photograph still.

Find them here, along with some yarn and roving and lots of other goodies:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/KnotMyDayJob

Enjoy!