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The male quail get their adult face coloring one splotch at a time,
but isn't it worth it to end up with this beautiful face?
This fellow is just starting to get adult face coloring.
Note the white line over his eyes and the black under his eyes.
On his body he is starting to get the silver-grey adult feathers in splotches.
This guy is getting splotches of adult color on his face and body,
and you can see that his tail feathers are longer.
Another sign that these males are maturing are the plumes on their heads.
These 2 are getting the light brown hair-like feathers between their eyes.
These 2 pics are of the same fellow. In the close up you can see the
lovely little light brown polka-dots around his eye, a last hold-out of his brown coloring.
The splotches of adult coloring come in differently on each individual.
Just 3 adult neck feathers, very unique splotch development
His 3 topknot plumes will eventually be
6 plumes joined together to be one topknot.
Very fluffy elegant plumes.
His light brown forehead hair-feathers and face coloring are coming in nicely,
but his silver-grey body feathers have barely begun coming in.
These 2 are getting in their adult over-bite beaks and silver-grey body feathers first.
He's got the beak and most of the body feathers,
but the head feathers still have a ways to go.
Notice the base of the topknot has white "wrappings."
Very noticable topknot wrappings
Two plumes wrapped
Plumes not wrapped, but hardly any adult neck feathers
Nice body and neck feathering, but very wrapped plumes.
This fellow has got one more step to go. He's got to get his topknot to look
like a single feather, when it is actually a cluster of six overlapping plumes.
And here he is, handsome fellow!
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