Weaver sees first bobwhite at Adams County Fair

Quail have always struck me as an awfully awesome bird.

But heck, birds have always struck me as awfully awesome birds.

When I was a little boy, my mom had to invent a special sort of "duck bread," or else, she claims, I would have wanted to go to any Spokane park every day to feed the ducks, geese, swans and seagulls which were about.

"Duck bread," you see, needed to be brought home by Dad after he got off work. The stuff we currently had in the house wasn't duck bread.

She got me to eat carrots in a similarly ingenious fashion, Mom did: Told me Bugs Bunny would be disappointed in me if I didn't.

Now, I was relatively certain Bugs Bunny wasn't real, but it wasn't anything I particularly wanted to leave to chance.

Of course, these days I can see the flaw in the logic: Bugs would have wanted the carrots for himself. I would argue, but there's still that slim chance … so I keep on eatin' 'em. For you, Bugs!

So I was the type of kid growing up who wanted to feed the ducks, make Bugs Bunny proud and spent way too much time with his nose buried in books.

One of those was a field guide to North American birds. I poured over that sucker, contemplating for hours the illustrations of rare and exotic species like the great blue heron, the bald eagle, the raven, any owl, hawks, the turkey vulture …

One of the birds which had my attention was the bobwhite. I don't why I found it so appealing, but it rapidly became one of the birds to see on my lifelong birdwatching list - right up there with snowy owls and hoatzins.

Of course, bobwhites aren't exactly native to the state of Washington. ENature.com says they are on the U.S. Endangered Species List. The closest I could usually come was the California quail, with their little feather bobs and their frantic rushes en masse across the street.

I love them, too, but each time I see them it serves as a little reminder: "Oh yeah, you still haven't seen a bobwhite, Matthew."

When I walked into the Adams County Fair last week, little did I know I'd be fulfilling one of my dreams.

For there, in the poultry barn, alongside the screeching roosters and the peacocks and the ducks were several quail entries.

And there amongst the quail? Bobwhites.

They were in a cage, so it doesn't count the same as being on a picnic with some gorgeous Hollywood starlet and suddenly coming across a whole covey of them in their natural habitat.

But still, a shiver ran down my back and for one moment, the roosters, peacocks and the rest of the fair faded away and I was that little boy again, flipping through well-flipped pages, looking at bird illustrations and pondering how Bugs Bunny would be pleased with me for finishing my bowl full of carrots at dinner.

And on that inevitable day when I and my flame o' the moment do go on that picnic, and we suddenly hear the call of "bob-white, poor-bob-white," I will be able to whisper back, "We'll always have the Adams County Fair, Bob."