Abstract. Communal brooding, which can occur as a result of brood amalgamation or communal parental care, is a common alternative brooding strategy observed in many precocial bird species. Although the occurrence of long-term communal brooding has been documented in numerous waterfowl species, and to a lesser extent in gallinaceous species, the occurrence and mechanisms facilitating temporary or short-term communal broods is less understood. During the 2013 and 2014 breeding seasons, we anecdotally observed temporary communal brooding in 3 Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) broods and one Scaled Quail (Callipepla squamata) brood. We present 3 mechanisms that may explain the occurrences of temporary communal brooding: (1) cool weather conditions observed at intermittent intervals throughout the breeding season, (2) predator avoidance behavior, and (3) a random proximity mechanism that triggers communal brooding in these highly gregarious bird species. It is our hope that these observations will facili...