Last post on babies.

Sorry for having so many posts on baby birds this week, but I’m like a kid at Christmas with what I’m finding. I had such a good day on the mountain today that I won’t be doing much more scouting until late July. Plus, it’s already becoming a bad cheat year and the ticks are still out in force.

The dogs and I confirmed my belief that most chukars are hatched later in June. On our hike today we found four different broods of chukar and one of huns. All of the chicks were about three or four days old. They dispersed so rapidly I couldn’t get a chick count but each encounter had at least ten chicks.

While momma was faking being hurt, I was trying to follow the moving cheat grass trails to find the chicks. It’s amazing how the chicks quit chirping and moving and you can’t find them. Even sometimes when I know they are there. I watched this chukar stop but had a hard time of seeing it.

It’s there but hard to find. The second covey was in a more open area and one chick let me pick it up for the picture. It was much faster when I put it down.

This hun was maybe a day or two older than the chukars but still less than a week old.

This last video of a chukar chick shows how hard it is to see them and how quickly they can disappear.

https://videopress.com/v/5oQmSqAE?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

I’m convinced that the chukar hatch starts pretty much around the first day of summer. All this cooler and wet weather was great for the birds. The greenery and the insects will be around for a long time this summer providing protein for all these little critters. I believe there will be no shortage of chukars to chase this year.

The camera is going away and I promise not to talk any more about baby chukars until late in July when I hope to be filming bunches of 5 to 6 week old birds taking to the air and learning how to avoid us predators. Can’t tell you how jacked I am for the upcoming season.