One of the birds I most wanted to photograph when we arrived in Arizona was the Gambel’s quail. Not because they are rare – we saw them in the neighborhood when we were looking at our rental house – but because they called me home. It was our vacation in New Mexico a decade ago that got me excited about living in the Southwest, and my encounter with Gambel’s quail there was one of the highlights of the trip, their serenade at sunrise. So it was a special delight to photograph this male and female up on the saguaros as the sun rose, dining on the cactus blossoms, in our shared desert home. Home in a larger sense, though I see them every day in my backyard these quail were at Brown’s Ranch in McDowell Sonoran Preserve.
Boolie 