The Eye of a Quail
“Eyes in front, a bird will hunt; eyes on the side, a bird will hide.”
The eyes of the California Quail are set well to the side of its head and, when we climbed out of our car at a redwood preserve in Sonoma County, a hen and a half dozen chicks ran to hide. By the time we walked close to them, the hen had run well into the brush, visible on a small rise, looking out towards her chicks. Some of the chicks had also disappeared into the brush, but others skittered at the edge of the parking lot, darting one way then another, into the thicket and out to the parking lot, uncertain where to go, confused.
Why were they confused, I wondered. I could see a clear path to safety, or at least to mother, perched just a few feet away. The brush was tangled, but there were plenty of chick-size, and even hen-size, holes in the brush that would easily lead to mother’s perch.
Then I thought about what the chicks could see. Barely an inch above the gravel, they saw us humans looming over them just as the redwood trees loomed over me, only—unlike the trees—we moved about clumsily and made an awful racket. In the chicks’ tiny eyes, the brush towered above them, a wall of crowded, dense branches. They may have seen openings fit for them to run into, but beyond those openings they could see only more branches, and they could not know what dangers the thicket might hold. They could not see their mother, lost in the tangle.
No wonder the chicks were confused. Their small, instinctive brains had much to sort out: the certain danger the gigantic humans presented, unknown dangers in the midst of the thicket, and the safety of mother somewhere in there, but where?
The path took us closer to the chicks. Now, I suppose, we were even more scary and the calculus shifted—the brush was still foreboding, but safer than staying exposed. As we neared them, each chick braved its way into the thicket and they all eventually found their mother. The period of confusion passed and the family reunited.
We are so used to the way we see the world that it takes an effort to step out and consider how others see it. Those chicks reminded me how profoundly different the world can look to others, even if they are standing right next to us.
It’s not so different among us humans. I see a forest of redwoods that filter sunlight, cool the forest, soak up carbon dioxide, quiet the day, and house quail. Others may see an obstacle to a clear route to their home, competition for resources needed by grapes in a nearby vineyard, or a source of functional and beautiful wood for construction or works of art.
We do not choose our point of view—it is all we have to work with. But with a little imagination we can make ourselves see as others see. Look at the world through the eye of the quail. If you can imagine what the quail sees, you might understand what the quail is doing; you might even be able to help it get where it needs to go.