Thank you all for the replies. I screwed up. As a little background, I have never hunted. Was a city boy my whole life until 3 months ago. I learned everything about quail and small game laws after the fact, when my friend mentioned they have a season for hunting various species of birds. I know this sounds ridiculous to most of you, but it was an honest boneheaded and ignorant mistake. I completely failed to recognize the distinction between killing ground squirrels and animals considered to be state property.
As ignorance of the law is no excuse, I am calling a warden to have him confiscate the bird and explain the situation to my son. I have already explained this all to my boy. He was directly supervised at all times, and took the shot only because I ok'd it, and had said "hey I think that's a quail, i heard you can eat those".
The fault is 100% mine and I accept the consequences. At this point I need to make this right for my son, so he sees a positive out of my massively stupid screw up.
Again, thanks for helping me figure this out.