A Comox Valley wildlife photographer didn’t have to go far to get what might be the first evidence of a rare east coast bird reproducing on Vancouver Island.
Catherine Babault recently photographed a male and female northern bobwhite in Courtenay, after a lucky encounter.
“I could hear those birds from my office. I was working on processing photos and I could hear them,” she says. “I thought, this is weird, I never heard that call before. So I went downstairs with my camera, and I saw a male and female, and they had chicks with them.”
She believes the pair have been in the area since at least last year, and were spotted in Millerd Park in July 2023. She says it’s a mystery how they got here, since they can’t fly. Others who have seen them suggested to her the birds might have escaped from a farm.
The northern bobwhite is a type of quail native to the eastern United States. They were introduced in Washington for hunting more than a century ago but have only been seen rarely since 1992.
