What The Fluff - Photo story of a tiny Bird Romeo/ Warrior 😀 who Tweets! - Wildlife pics

Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it, let’s do it, let’s fall in love. - Unknown

Sure - but how do you do it when you are a 4" tall bird which rarely flies! How do you get your lady love to notice you? How do you find where on earth she is anyway first when you can't see past the next shoot of grass!😀

You get on the largest mound that you find in your territory and 'Tweet' at the top of your voice! But first, you need to fluff up and scare your rivals till they say 'What the fluff' and bug off...

Huff and Puff

Let me start at the beginning though.

The little Rain quail is not heard and not seen. It is a tiny quail that spends time foraging most of the year and even if we look hard, we can not see it.

However, come rains, the atmosphere fills ups with shrill sounds of 'TWEET TWEET' and these little male rain quails become Romeos and Heroes for a month or so.

Obstacles in love ❤️
Due to it's size, eve a small grass clump makes it impossible for this little Romeos. Their potential mate could be anywhere in 100s of square yard of territory and hence, the male has to make his presence known.

The best way to do this is is to climb on a tall mound and shout at the top of his voice (literally!!).

This task is not easy though because of territories! Like us humans, these little guys are also very competitive when it comes to protecting their territories.

So - a big obstacle is finding a tallish mound which is climbable but a bigger obstacle is making sure that a rival male does not encroach there and make it his own!

Show of strength and size 💪
After climbing the mound, the moment our little warrior senses the presence of another male on his territory, he ruffles up all his feathers and appears as big as possible.. Like in the picture above.

To add to the fierce appearance, some feathers on the top of the head stand up too...

The 'Don't mess with me' look

The little quail looks actually cute when it fluffs up but I guess it is warning enough for it's other male rivals!

Standing tall and sounding off! or the "TWEET"
Who had imagined birds Tweet too!😀 The little quail actually does. It sounds like 'TWEET TWEET'

The little Romeo/warrior stands tall, as tall as his 4" height allows on that mound and then with all his might, the sends out the call 'TWEET TWEET'. For this little guy, the decibel level of sound is really large and can be heard even 100 feet away!

As we can see, it takes supreme effort with mouth wide open and eyes partially rolled up - all energies focused on projecting his mating call throughout his territory!

The wait for mate!
The shouting takes so much energy that our little warrior has to rest frequently before shouting again. He sits and waits for a female to respond or sometimes just forages a bit to get his energy back...
With wind ruffling the feathers, the Romeo just looks perfect and cute for any lady who may be willing to respond.

The wait - Sitting pretty

The wait is sometimes short and sometimes long and ends in disappointment. Without giving up, our little Romeo/Warrior moves to the next mount and starts all over again.
He will keep doing this for a month if needed, till he finds his mate for the season!

Circle of life has to go on !!!

I got the opportunity during this time to get some really close 'count the feathers' clicks. I was in my car and the little Romeo was too pre-occupied with his mate finding ritual to bother about my presence. So, without disturbing him I inched closer and took the following clicks...

The wind swept look

The picture below is probably a rare one for this bird with so much clarity that we can literally count it's feathers 😀

It is challenging for wildlife photographers to get close up pictures - especially when the subject is 4 in tall and visible only for brief periods during the year. I was thrilled to capture these pictures - Do you think the effort was worth it?

Hope you enjoyed seeing the images. I will try to bring many different types of wildlife photos/macro/Astro posts to the community. Feedback and comments are welcome,. I am still learning many techniques and always value feedback from experts in this community.

Have a nice day everyone. Cheers!