What bird says Chicago?

The bird calling chi-CA-go is a California Quail, a plumed ground bird of brushy hillsides, oak woodland, farms, parks and suburbs on the Pacific side of the West, from California north into Oregon. The call is three loud notes with the middle one highest. It lives there all year, so the call can come in any month. In the desert Southwest the answer changes to Gambel's Quail, a close relative whose call is a higher, usually four-note chi-ca-go-go. Either way, look low: the caller is usually on or near the ground, and its covey is rarely far away.

Listen: the California Quail

Unlike many mnemonics, this one is printed right in the field guides. Audubon's guide gives the call as a loud, distinctive ka-kah-ko or Chi-ca-go, with the second note highest. Wikipedia simply calls it the chicago call and files it with the bird's social calls, next to soft contact pips and sharper warning pips. National Geographic and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department borrow the same city for the desert cousin. Strip the word away and what is left is three loud beats that rise to a high middle note and fall again. That shape, more than the exact syllables, is what to listen for.

In the breeding season you may hear a second voice cut in. Wikipedia notes that males give an aggressive note called a squill, and sometimes use it to interrupt their mate's chicago call.

Audubon lists broken chaparral, woodland edges, coastal scrub, parks and farms as habitat, with the most birds in open oak woodland and streamside growth, and adds that the species also lives in suburbs and semi-desert but avoids mountains. The native range runs from Oregon and western Nevada down through California, which made it the state bird in 1931. Coveys feed on the ground, scratching at the soil for seeds and leaves, take dust baths together in sunny spots, and would rather walk away than fly. Startle them and they burst into short, fast, whirring flight.

In the desert: Gambel's Quail

Out in the deserts, the Chicago caller is a Gambel's Quail. National Geographic writes its loud call as chi-ca-go-go, similar to the California Quail's but higher and usually four notes, sometimes cut down to one or two syllables. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department describes it as a nasal chi-CA-go-go and calls it a location call: you often hear it after a covey has been flushed and the birds are trying to find each other again. Around it come other sounds, including a repeated chip-chip-chip of alarm, a loud squawk as birds take off, a plaintive qua-el, and plenty of clucking and chattering.

Gambel's Quail live in the Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts, in desert shrubland and thickets of mesquite, acacia and creosote, and most coveys stay within about a mile of water. In Texas they are limited to the upper Rio Grande and its drainages in the far west of the state. Spring brings one more call: from April through June, males stand upright with the crest raised and give a loud kaa from an exposed perch, apparently to attract a mate. That single note is easy to miss if you are only listening for the city.

How to tell which one you heard

• Count the beats. Three notes, chi-CA-go: California Quail. Four, chi-CA-go-go, a little higher: Gambel's Quail. Gambel's sometimes shortens the call, so one clipped call proves nothing.
• Check the landscape. Oak woodland, chaparral, coastal scrub, farms and suburbs on the Pacific side: California Quail. Mesquite, acacia and creosote desert: Gambel's.
• Listen to the tone. Texas Parks and Wildlife calls the Gambel's version nasal, and National Geographic hears it as higher pitched than the California bird's.
• Mind the season. A single loud kaa, repeated from a perch in the desert in late spring, is a male Gambel's Quail advertising, not the Chicago call.

If the caller stays hidden in the brush, Warble can listen and tell you which quail it is.

Questions people ask

Warble is a game, not a field guide. Facts about birds on this page come from the sources above.