A snow-dusted, grass-stippled patch of yard backed by a wintering rose bush and red-slatted fence. Between ten and thirty California quail--plump, colorblocked birds with little doohickey crest plumes that curl kewpie-like from their foreheads--are scooting around the yard, in and out of frame, scratching and foraging in the snowy leaf litter amongst the house sparrows. They bob and scratch and throw up arcs of grass behind them as they morble and toodle in the snow.