Sighting

This morning we had a very exciting sighting.  Underneath of the gate leading out into the pasture there was something sitting there.  It was very dappled and camouflaged and very still, but we could tell that it was something interesting.  George had jumped out of the truck and gone into the house but Dan and I looked at it from a distance and wondered.  George was going out with the muzzleloader to deer hunt and we let him know that he should look at the "thing" when he went by.  Once he had gone past the "thing" I went out to look at it.  It was a quail!  As I walked up to the gate it ran off into the grass.  That is awesome!  Iowa DNR had done their annual road side survey in August this year, and for the first time in decades, NW Iowa had no quail sighted during the survey.  Normally quail are never this far north in Iowa because of our cropping, cover types, and weather, but in the next county south of us, they have been known to have quail.  And while we heard a quail in the spring and have every once in a while in previous springs, we never expect to see them in the fall.  I'm wondering if the cover crop with its abundance of seeds, borders and edges, and the way our farm is broken into edges from our many crop types and rotational grazing has made a habitat change that has held the birds here.  What ever the reason we're very excited to see a quail this time of year.