Bob-bob-white?

[japple]

For the past couple days, I've been hearing that familiar call, but it sounds like it's coming from a tree. I haven't seen/heard quail in many years, though this area used to be full of them. Could it be a mockingbird, and, if so, how did it learn to imitate a quail when they haven't been around for a long time?

[carpetbagger]

1. I'd vote mockingbird

First year mockingbirds move quite far at times, with banding records showing many birds moving up to a few hundred miles, and I'm not even talking about withdrawal from the northern edge of the bird's range. Given your place listing in your profile, I'd imagine that within several miles there's quite a few areas where bobwhite still occur, although they can be decidedly local (I live 1500 feet from territory with of lots of bobwhite, but never hear them unless I walk over there, although my hearing acuity isn't that great).

This was a common thing to see around my old home of San Antonio, Texas. There were abrupt demarcations of bird ranges between Tamaulipan brush, eastern woodland, and the oak-juniper habitat of the Edwards Plateau, especially with corvids, thrashers, and western songbirds. So we'd take note of mockingbird imitations of "out of place birds", and the mockingbirds will in fact mimic birds from more than a few miles outside the range.

[semillama]

2. One thing to check with Mockingbird

is to listen when you hear the "bob-WHITE" and see if other different bird songs immediately follow from the same location. Not sure how common it would be for a mocker to just imitate one particular bird.