Herbert Stoddard, author of The Bobwhite Quail: its Habits, Preservation, and Increase, wrote in the 1950s: “The bobwhite might probably be called the Fire Bird.” If ever there was a bird that could be considered a real-life Phoenix, it is the bobwhite quail. They have evolved, almost quite literally, to rise from the ashes of fire upon the land.
But modern times have been hard times for the fire bird. Development, the rise of commercial timber farming, changing agricultural and land-use practices, and the persistent cultural meme–embodied by totems like smokey Bear–that fire in the natural environment is a bad thing, have largely extinguished this once vitally important part of the natural order.