Five of a Kind

William J. Plummer

May 2017 · Crossroad Press

About this ebook

Almost every family has given refuge to a stray animal or fed a rescued baby robin with an eyedropper. But a quail? Five of a Kind recounts the Plummer family's adventures as they met a challenge unique even in their long experience of animal adoption: the rearing of five young desert quail, from hatching to maturity.

The odds were long against the birds' survival, and the Plummers had unexpected difficulties to face, among them an aggressive carnivorous cat. But all five of the birds survived.

This is the story of those five—of Red-Leg, Brownie, Rose, Carrie, and Pearl—and of how they managed, with flair and character and to the delight and amusement of the author, to live through those first fifteen weeks, to be released eventually as adult birds to the wild—all except one, who refused to leave her adopted parents.

Five of a Kind is a charming blend of personal involvement and natural history, an insight into the author's concern for and enjoyment of not just individual birds but their species and their natural societal order. This book is for anyone who shares those feelings.