Quails, Quails, and More Quails!
Comprehension Skill: Questioning
By Susan Markowitz Meredith
Some birds have bright red chests and sing pretty songs. They are robins. Some birds are tiny, have quick heartbeats, and flap their wings quickly. They are hummingbirds. But what are these birds with plump, round bodies and small heads? They are quails. There are many kinds of quails.
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Quail Fact Robins and California quails are the same size. They are both smaller than a football. California quail
All quails are the same in some ways. But in other ways, they are different. Some quails have fancy top feathers. The head and body feathers of quails can also be interesting. Each kind of quail has its own pattern.
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Quails usually stay in groups. Most quails don’t travel far. But common quails do travel far. Every spring, they fly north from Africa. These birds spend the summer laying eggs. Then they go south again. Mountain quails also travel. They move up and down on the mountains where they live.
IRELAND
UNITED KINGDOM
DENMARK POLAND
BELARUS
Europe
The Springtime Route of Common Quails Common quails travel from Africa to Europe in the spring. They return to Africa in the fall.
FRANCE
SPAIN
UKRAINE
HUNGARY ROMANIA ITALY GREECE
Africa
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You probably won’t need to travel far to find a quail. Quails live in fields, deserts, and woods. There are quails all over the world!
Quail Fact There are 130 kinds of quails in the world.
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ILLUSTRATIONS: Jason Dove. MAP: Mountain High Maps. PHOTOS: Getty Images: Tom Brakefield/Stockbyte (p. 4, above bottom left); iStockphoto. com: Frank Leung (p. 1, hummingbird), Gary Martin (p. 1, robin), Melvin Milne (p. 2, bottom right; p. 4, top right), NaturesDisplay (p. 2, top right; p. 4, top left), Peter Llewellyn (p. 1, top right; p. 2, bottom center; p. 4, below top right), phdpsx (p. 3, top left; p. 4, bottom right), Steven Myers (p. 4, bottom left); Shutterstock, Inc.: Tim Zurowski (p. 1, bottom left); JupiterImages Corporation: all other images.
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