Meet Our Owners
Sally Litvin opened her first Wild Bird Center in Reading, PA in March 1998. She has since opened a second in Wayne, PA and has become a top sales earner in the franchise. Now running the operation with the help of her son, Jason Blaker, Sally is a consistent performer and has been an inspiration to new franchisees. She has this to say about the business:
“I opened my first Wild Bird Center about 10 years ago and enjoyed it so much I opened up a second one about 5 years later and I just enjoy waking up in the morning and going to work. It’s exciting!”
Bird Species: Q
Counting Quail in the Mountain West
Klamath Falls, Oregon is a land of sunshine and ancient volcanoes, pastures and marshes, fields and lakes. Mount Shasta dominates our southern horizon, and Carter Lake National Park -- the remnant of an exploded volcano -- is 60 miles north. The centerpiece of what we call "the basin" is Upper Klamath Lake, 30 miles long and 8 miles wide.
With the lake being 4,100 feet above sea level on the Pacific flyway for migratory birds, numerous species lay over for food and respite every spring and fall.
By the end of April the evening grosbeaks had swarmed in and out, the starlings arrived and the robins had been around for weeks. They don't visit our feeder, but they make great use of the bird bath, fluttering like avian dervishes in apparent ecstasy.
When the white-crowned sparrows joined us for the summer, juncos and mountain quail made themselves scarce. Hummingbirds arrive later in May, but warblers flitted among the wild plum bushes like particles in a cloud chamber.
One group of permanent residents throughout the year is the California quail. They visit our ground feeders two or three times a day. We don't often see them otherwise, but we hear them constantly. They live in the brush, pecking the leaf litter, quarrelling, chattering with a sound like pebbles skipping on thin ice. And always, often from an elevated and concealed sentinel's post, one or more of them repeat a loud call that I can render only as WHEE-WE-WEE! WHEE-WE-WEE! I puzzled for months over what bird could make such a racket.
The plumage of these birds is subtle but lovely. As seems to be the case with most birds, the males wear the flashy duds. Except for his gray breast and bluish/black chin, you could describe the look as "mottled underbrush brown." It must serve them well because I have yet to find a dead quail.
At feeding time the quail run out of the brush singly, stopping frequently to see if all is clear. Their forward drooping plumes give them a comical aspect, making them look as if their center of gravity is too high and too far forward. One at a time they'll sprint the few yards from bushes to feeder until a dozen or more are contentedly picking and scratching at the millet and cracked corn I spread for them.
The quail are panicky birds and will, with a great swoosh, fly into the trees at the slightest noise or movement, all on the same trajectory. Even the babies, hardly bigger than chicken eggs with legs, fly like that.