Foxes, weasels, hawks and stray cats take their toll, but hard, driving rain and cold weather are probably more serious threats during the first few days. Young birds develop rapidly. When two weeks old, they can fly short distances, and by 10 weeks of age they have most of the speed and agility of their parents. Birds of the year have pale tips on their outer primary coverts, or wing feathers, while the same feather is uniformly gray on an adult. Parents and young stay together all summer.
Winter is a harsh season for quail.
Food is scarce, especially when snow crusts over ground and plants. The average life expectancy of an individual bobwhite is less than a year, with an estimated 75 percent of the population replaced annually by young of the year. Population Pennsylvania is on the northern fringe of the bobwhite's range. But throughout the rest of the state, bobwhites are scarce to non-existent. In general, we had more quail 30 to 40 years ago when smaller farms flourished.