Turkasaurus Rex?

On May 2nd, 2011 at 1:01pm Sally Hall said:

Well, I think that the decline of these plump birds, if it happens, is caused by a lot of reasons. It may be due to habitat changes, other predators and the climate, who knows and the author is right to point that out. Turkeys are one specie that may or may not affect the quail's nesting and such.

On April 25th, 2011 at 2:22pm Anonymous said:

As a forester never heard of this.

On April 19th, 2011 at 9:27am sudkas said:

The statement that “nothing has changed in X years” is one heard quite frequently by biologists and land managers. At the risk of sounding disbelieving, please consider that in nature, nothing stays the same (see earlier blog on succession). Succession is a constant force acting on habitats, and without management intervention, it can quickly progress beyond the point where quail thrive (early stages in Missouri). An analogy I often use is that habitat changes are like your hair growing: it happens every day, but slowly enough that you don’t really notice a day-to-day difference. Consider these possible changes on most farms in the past 25 years: weed-free crop fields due to Round-Up Ready® technology; less waste grain in fields due to more efficient combines; continual encroachment of fescue/brome/Reed’s canary grass into thickets and field edges; fewer idle weedy areas due to air conditioned tractors and 15’ bush hogs; loss of shrub/bramble thickets to mowing or crowding out by trees; increased presence of nest predators due to fewer trappers; clearing and conversion of brushy ditches to mowed grass waterways. If none or few of these changes describe your situation, consider change in the surrounding landscape. Even if your property still offers good habitat, populations are not likely to persist on islands of good habitat in an inhospitable sea of poor quality land. As for why your bird population can’t seem to rebound, without seeing the property I can only speculate. But I would offer that on most farms today weedy brood habitat comprised largely of annual broadleaf plants with an open understory is lacking. Many landowners have reported excellent quail response by doing little more than killing fescue and creating weedy cover. For more help, consider contacting your local Private Land Conservationist, or download a quail habitat appraisal guide http://extension.missouri.edu/explorepdf/miscpubs/mp0902.pdf --Scott Sudkamp

On April 19th, 2011 at 8:13am Darryl Hoke said:

My best friend and I have been hunting the same tract of land (about 120 acres) for the past 25 years. In those 25 years,nothing has changed about the property (that I can see) except the ownership and the quail population. This property has a large drainage ditch running along its near east side from south to north. The ditch holds water year round and is wooded its entire length. The terrain along the ditch varies from smooth to very rough and the vegetation ranges from grass to shrubbery and even blackberry thicket; most of the trees are black locust. The farmer alternates crops with soy beans and corn and no tills most of the time. During the 1980's and early 90's we planned weekend hunting trips with our bird dogs to hunt quail on the property. During an average season, we would harvest approximately 120 birds and estimatedly leave the same number for "seed." Then as the 90's came to an end, the population of birds began to decline at a rapid rate. From one year to the next, the "seed" we had left the previous year could not be found on the property. Only a few stragglers remained and we felt there were too few to open season on them with hopes they would recover the next year. This decline took place in one off-season. We've been scratching our head ever since to figure out what the problem is and my first inclination was that something in the herbicide the farmer was putting on his crops may be rendering the quail sterile and I'm still not convinced that isn't the case. We know that there are raptors and coyotes and bobcats that pose a threat to quail populations, but why can't they reproduce enough to maintain their numbers? I've also read MDC articles describing edge feathering and how it affects quail populations, but I'm also convinced this can't be our problem as there has been no dramatic change in vegetation on the property. The quail survived and flourished on this property for years and years even before we hunted it and then all of a sudden they were gone. I've also hunted rabbits on Conservation ground where quail are plentiful and the cover was much thicker that it is on our hunting ground. I will say that in the past 25 years, we have only seen turkeys on the property one time and they were apparently just passing through. I can see turkeys disturbing quail nests to get to the bugs attracted to them, but I don't think they intentionally predate on quail and I've seen no evidence of it. The property is still an excellent place to hunt deer and geese, but I didn't even hear a bobwhite call this past deer season. If anyone that reads this can help me with a solution, I would appreciate it greatly.