Blob grabbing attention of quail researchers

MULESHOE - West Texas researchers spent some time with a blob last week at the Muleshoe Wildlife Refuge.

No, it wasn't scary for them. The blob is not an alien lifeform that consumes everything in its path like the movie from 1958.

This blob is no harm to anyone, according to Dale Rollins, executive director for the Rolling Plains Quail Research Foundation at Roby, Texas, who found the bird.

"I've seen a number of blobs over the last 40 years, and that is one of the prettiest (birds) I've seen as far as markings. Blobs often look like what I'd call a dirty-faced bobwhite (quail). The feathers are more vivid," Rollins said.

Rollins said his organization is working with the Muleshoe refuge and private landowners in West Texas to capture and move some of the local quail population 150 miles east to Kent County. Their mission is to revive a population that was there until about 2005. He said the blob was alongside 25 other quail birds that were captured at the Muleshoe refuge.

"The way it was running with a group of 25 other birds, it was an incidental capture," he said.

The blob, which will remain on the Muleshoe refuge, is a hybrid quail - a cross between the two local quail species, the scaled quail and the northern bobwhite quail. It's extremely rare, according to Muleshoe Wildlife Refuge Executive Director Jude Smith.

"It's not a rare bird species that comes in; it's just a bird species that occurs occasionally," Smith said. "It's really odd that it happens, but I'm sure it will happen again over time. It's just opportune breeding. It's a rarity. Animals naturally want to reproduce, but they usually stick to their own species to do so."

Smith said blue quail and bobwhite quail often congregate together at the Muleshoe refuge. On rare occasions, there might be a female quail who has not yet bred late in the season. Whether their species is available or not, the birds still have that natural need to reproduce; so they will breed with the next closest thing to their species.

Smith said he's been aware of two blobs who call the Muleshoe refuge home.

"In the springtime, when you are counting birds, you can hear this weird quail sound that is not usual, and that's when I see these birds. That's how I picked them out the first year was they were out of place," Smith said.

He said he first spotted the blobs about three years ago. He believes they are sterile since no more hybrids have been spotted.

"If they were not sterile, we'd have them all over the place," he said. "You would worry if a hybrid could reproduce. You have a pure population here of bobwhite and scaled quail. If these two birds would go back and breed with scaled quail, and if that keeps going, you could lose your actual population and have a new species."

Smith said he does not anticipate the two blobs being around much longer, because 3 years old is "ancient in quail world."

In the meantime, the blobs have clearly captured the hearts of many.

Rollins said his organization's Facebook post about the bird has received 96,000 hits, making it their top-ranking post in the past 12 years "by a long shot."