Quail Habitat Management: Notes from 40 Years in the Field

By Dr. Ron Haaland

Expansion of human population destroys wildlife habitat with subdivisions, highways, strip malls, and other man-made projects. This book provides notes from forty years experience working with practical ways to maintain and develop bobwhite quail habitat. This advice gives hunters, birders, and nature lovers an opportunity to enjoy one of the most revered gamebirds.

Landowners and managers will be able to implement techniques that will enhance bird populations as well as improve the aesthetics and value of land. Reading the notes in this book is like having a personal interaction with Dr. Haaland regarding your land.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543471403

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Dr. Ron Haaland.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2017918903

ISBN:                      Hardcover                         978-1-5434-7142-7

                                Softcover                            978-1-5434-7141-0

                                eBook                                 978-1-5434-7140-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 12/15/2017

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

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CONTENTS

Introduction

NOTE 1:     Habitat for Quail, Man, and Dog

NOTE 2:     Basics of Designing Habitat

NOTE 3:     Keep It Simple

NOTE 4:     Back to Basics: Soils

NOTE 5:     Cover Management

NOTE 6:     Development and Management of Edge

NOTE 7:     Creative Edge

NOTE 8:     Hedgerows: The Backbone of Habitat

NOTE 9:     Brush and Briars: Premier Wildlife Plants

NOTE 10:   Pockets of Productivity

NOTE 11:   Developing Ecologically Sound Habitat

NOTE 12:   Planning for Habitat Improvement

NOTE 13:   Developing New Territory for Upland Birds

NOTE 14:   Vegetation Balancing Act

NOTE 15:   The Importance of Prime Nesting Habitat

NOTE 16:   Habitat Influences Flight Patterns

NOTE 17:   Timing Is Everything

NOTE 18:   Timing Can Be Critical

NOTE 19:   Decisions and Timing

NOTE 20:   The Habitat Evaluation Season

NOTE 21:   Common Mistakes Made in Habitat Management

NOTE 22:   Scruffy Is Okay

NOTE 23:   Drought Survival for Upland Game

NOTE 24:   Battling the Drought for Bobwhites

NOTE 25:   Winter Habitat Management Tips

NOTE 26:   Prepare Now For Next Winter

NOTE 27:   Habitat Rehab after Catastrophic Weather

NOTE 28:   Quail on Small Acreage

NOTE 29:   Insects: A Management Paradox

NOTE 30:   Food Plot How-To

NOTE 31:   Planting Methods Can Make or Break New Habitat

NOTE 32:   Is It a Weed or Is It Quail Feed?

NOTE 33:   Partridge Peas: Good for Food and Cover

NOTE 34:   Bicolor Lespedeza

NOTE 35:   Reseeding Vetch

NOTE 36:   Alfalfa for Upland Birds

NOTE 37:   Grass for Game Birds

NOTE 38:   Soybeans and Quail

NOTE 39:   Sorghums and Quail

NOTE 40:   Crop Residues and Upland Birds

NOTE 41:   Quick Crops for Quail

NOTE 42:   Growing Your Own Wildlife Seed

NOTE 43:   Quail Feeders: Good or Bad?

NOTE 44:   Predators and Competitors

NOTE 45:   Fur and Feather

NOTE 46:   Where Did the Birds Go?

NOTE 47:   Prescribed Burn: Important Habitat Tool

NOTE 48:   No Absolutes or Quick Fixes

NOTE 49:   Putting Quail Back into Quail Hunting

NOTE 50:   Combating Quail Habitat Loss

NOTE 51:   What Is Habitat Worth?

NOTE 52:   So You Want to Start a Shooting Preserve

NOTE 53:   Quail Habitat Myths

NOTE 54:   Warning: Lyme Disease Is Everywhere

Resources

References

Suppliers

Organizations

DEDICATION

To my family; Joanne, Shellie and Wade for putting up with my absence due to my continuous travels working with ag and wildlife projects in various countries.

INTRODUCTION

In 1977, John Olin, chairman of Olin Corp. and owner of Winchester Firearms, invited me to come to his NILO Plantation near Albany, Georgia, to discuss developing new plants for bobwhite quail. Mr. Olin had heard about my research on special plants at Auburn University from a business associate in England. I knew Mr. Olin was a famous industrialist and sportsman; I did not know anything about NILO. I met Mr. Olin at his beautiful plantation home at NILO. He said, Dr. Haaland, there are three priorities on NILO; number one is quail, number two is quail and number three is quail and if you can agree with that we will get along fabulously. At that time, I did not know anything about bobwhite quail other than it was a beautiful game bird loved by sportsmen and birders.

I was asked to develop research on NILO to try to find plants and techniques that would be helpful in providing year around feed for quail. Fortunately, the NILO staff showed me the ropes of quail habitat and plantation management. This mentoring by Mr. Olin and his staff was an incredible experience because at that time NILO was considered the best private hunting preserve in the world hosting presidents, royalty, politicians, and many elite business people from around the world.

Work at NILO led to introduction to other fine quail plantations in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida. It also resulted in research with Florida Fish and Game, Tall Timbers Research, and the National Wild Turkey Federation. Expansion of activities into consultation in multiple enterprise agricultural and wildlife habitat management resulted in customers throughout the US and Mexico.

These activities were documented in notes, reports, photographs, maps, and writing habitat articles for Quail Unlimited, all of which became the basis of this book. Hopefully this book will provide ideas for your own property-management projects. Since the timeframe of this book is over forty years, you might notice things that may seem out of date or redundant, but I assure you they are based on factual observations during my work and are still relevant notes.

NOTE 1

Habitat for Quail, Man, and Dog

At last you’ve got a weekend to pursue your favorite bird, complete with restful sights, hushed sounds, and fragrances only fall air can provide. A chance at a bobwhite entices more people to enjoy the beauties of nature than any other game bird. You and your dog seldom have better moments. In fact, Ol’ Jo hits the ground with more enthusiasm than when he eats.

You start to work an area you haven’t worked before. Jo disappears into tall cover and you really can’t tell where he is except when you see some thick grass, weeds, and bushes moving. You spend hours working through the same mess hoping you are getting close to a point.

Wirr. Birds explode three feet in front of you. With a quick shot, you’ve got one. But where did it fall? Where’s Jo? Stumbling through briars, vines, and plants you didn’t know existed outside of Africa, you finally find your bird and your dog. Both look worse for the wear. Jo’s ears are bleeding; he’s full of cockleburs, sandspurs, and God knows what else. Worst of all, his enthusiasm is gone. And he’s not the only one who has lost his enthusiasm.

You have just spent the day in habitat that is better suited to rats and snakes than bird, man, and dog. The common denominator is the plant life. To provide a topnotch hunting experience, the plant community must be managed. This may consist of occasional disking or bush hogging, food-patch planting, and prescribed burning. There are several things to consider when you decide to manage habitat.

Habitat is a geographical area with associated plant and animal life that a bobwhite calls home, year around. The keywords are year around. Often habitat is only thought of during the hunting season. A bobwhite’s habitat will provide a place for the bird to eat, roost, breed, nest, brood, and start the cycle again.

Let’s look at some of the key elements of habitat management. First, food must be provided year around whether by nature or with man’s intervention with food patches or feeders. Often a combination of natural plants and food patches provides the greatest number of healthy birds. The food varies throughout the year due to the food source and the habits of the birds.

During winter months, seeds and vegetation are the mainstay. You’ve undoubtedly heard of some of the quail’s favorites: partridge peas, beggarweed, ragweed, clovers, bicolor lespedeza, etc. During the breeding season, the birds’ protein demands are higher, and they switch to a diet that contains more insects. Young growing birds normally consume more insects than adults. Several winter-growing clovers and reseeding vetches are excellent insect producing crops during spring and summer.

Quail can have all the food in the world, but without cover, they won’t last long. Cover for nesting, brooding, roosting, and escape is a necessary part of their world. Plantings of special plant species such as wild plum thickets, bicolor patches, partridge peas, corn, sorghum, and many other species can provide much of this cover. Prescribed burning can also aid in the development of plants that provide cover. However, be careful. Burning too frequently or too hot can make a habitat too clean and cover hard to find.

If cover is properly managed, it will provide excellent hunting. If you have bicolor strips or hedgerows a mile long with no breaks, your birds will become marathon runners. If cover is uniformly thick, you and your dog become discouraged. Of course, if you can’t see your dog work, it takes much of the enjoyment out of the hunt. Break up your cover to have more fun with your sport.

Edge is critically important in habitat management. Areas where different types of plant communities come together, such as the edge of a timber stand that contains brush trailing off to a grass and bare ground opening, are favorite places for quail. You may have to make additional edge by clearing land or cutting strips through large cover areas.

Properly handled, prescribed burning will be helpful in maintaining good edge effect. Plant community composition can be altered by burning and disking. If plants are too dense, they can be thinned. Disking will often regenerate various annual and perennial herbaceous plants. People are often amazed to find that after burning or disking, they have plants they have never seen before. Often these are favorable plants such as partridge peas. Disking or burning scarifies long dormant seeds so they could germinate and grow.

Edge areas containing bare ground, such as along trails and roadways, provide dusting areas for quail. Dusting is the main way a quail keeps clean of external parasites. These open areas also provide a place for young to dry out from the morning’s dew or after a rain. Learning to work a natural or manmade edge will be rewarding for you and your dog.

Birds need water but will often get it from dew on leaves. Depressions can be dug in the ground to supplement to birds’ water supply. I have seen a variety of things used for water containment: old tires, barrels cut in half, metal pans of various sizes, etc. These are more for the benefit of a hardworking dog than the bird though. In dry areas like Texas or Mexico, it is often necessary to put in a guzzler (water storage and release) mechanism for the birds.

I don’t know that quail appreciate the beauty of well-managed habitat, but you and your friends will. For example, food patches that are properly managed not only provide food for your birds, they also look good and give you the positive feeling that you are doing something worthwhile for your birds. Specially placed bushes and trees that show beautiful fall color or provide particularly good fruit become landmarks that provide enjoyment. Wild plums or frost-cured persimmons can add a special enchantment to a grand day.

Bird hunting should be an exhilarating experience. It is one of the best-known tension relievers. When you get through with your hunt, you don’t need to feel like you’ve been run over by a steamroller. That’s why habitat—that elusive place where bob lives to provide you excitement—should and can be managed for you, your bird, and your dog. It may not be an easy job. Depending on where you start, it may take a good deal of time and effort to get the plant community developed so it will support quail and at the same time allow you and your dog the space for an enjoyable hunt.

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Excellent Habitat

NOTE 2

Basics of Designing Habitat

Birds and dogs don’t care about wildlife habitat design. Some people notice and appreciate well-designed habitat while others couldn’t care less. While design of cars and clothes is in the eye of the beholder, habitat design is directly related to function, environmental soundness, manageability, and real estate value. Let’s look at a few basic concepts to be considered when designing wildlife habitat.

SITE SELECTION OR LOCATION

Some people own land by choice and some by default. Either way, there are some tools that will be helpful in deciding how to get started on design work and how functional the property will be. Area maps and aerial maps will give you a good overview of the location and its adjoining area. Surrounding areas can have a profound effect on how well your wildlife habitat will perform. If you are surrounded by trailer parks, I suggest you move.

How you plan to use the property will influence site selection. If it is to be a private retreat, you will want low accessibility; if you are starting a commercial sporting program, access and demographics become important considerations.

TOPOGRAPHY

Lay of the land can be evaluated through observation, photographs, and topographical maps (topos). By studying topography, you will learn direction and steepness of slopes, drainage patterns, surface water locations, etc.

Close study of topography will also give you clues to where wildlife travel lanes may be. Location of food patches in relation to natural contours of the land can also affect flight patterns of birds.

Access to various points on the property can be visually accentuated by carefully developing roads using topographic parameters. Proper attention to design can make the lay of the land one of the most enjoyable aspects of your property.

SOILS

Most locations have soil maps that have been developed by the Natural Resource Conservation Service. These maps will tell you the type of soil, best use possibilities, and other information that will be helpful when designing habitat. By knowing what the soils are and where they are located, you will be able to place buildings, food patches, roadways, ponds, etc. in the best locations.

Soil tests should be run on all areas to establish a benchmark fertility level for the property. This information will be valuable for deciding which plant species to use in habitat development. It will also help in developing budgets for development work.

CLIMATE

Knowing the climatic conditions of your property will help you decide how to design habitat. Seasonal temperatures and rainfall will influence what types of plants will grow that could be used as food for wildlife. Knowing prevailing wind direction will influence placement of hedgerows location of fire lanes, location of buildings and even shooting course layout.

Season changes in climate can be directly related to risk. Some areas are simply too hot or too cold to support some types of wildlife. Climatic factors can be modified to some extent by proper design. For example, if your property is in an area where springtime comes slowly, placing food patches on slopes with southern exposure can get plants producing more quickly than on level ground.

VEGETATION

Existing vegetation can be either a blessing or a bane to habitat design work. Some species are very valuable as food and cover for wildlife. Some species are simply beautiful. Unfortunately, habitat destruction caused by man over many decades has left a lot of property invaded by aggressive, nonproductive and sometimes ugly plant species. By knowing the vegetation types on your property, you will be able to decide which species to save and which to discard.

Working with vegetation is one of the most practical ways of designing habitat. As habitat edge is developed, use curved lines instead of straight lines. This will add more linear feet of edge, plus it will look and function much better than straight rows of edge. As cover species are either saved or planted, use plants that look good and potentially provide food during some time of the year.

There are many options when choosing vegetation for functional habitat design. Size, shape, and color should be considerations. Nearly every hue of the rainbow can be found in plants suitable for wildlife. Color is a year-around phenomenon. Flowers, seeds, and foliage in spring, summer, and fall all add color dimension to habitat. Intentional use of species for a special color effect will not compromise the functionality of habitat.

WATER

Too much or too little water can cause problems when designing habitat. Knowing drainage patterns and direction of streamflow, location of floodplains and swamps, and ground water status are all part of the background needed for good design work. By knowing these water-related details you will be able to make informed decisions on what type of vegetation to plant and where to plant various species. If you have any wetlands, you will need to consult your local Natural Resource Conservation Service office to determine if you can make any alterations to the wetland area.

Adding water impoundments to property can enhance its value from a monetary standpoint as well as a wildlife standpoint. Well-placed ponds add both dimension and function to habitat. Of course, well-managed ponds also provide additional sporting opportunities that add value to habitat.

ROADS

Roads are often put in place as an afterthought. However, if they are properly designed and constructed, they will add value to property. Straight roads should be avoided. They are boring and add little value to edge effect. Roads that follow contours and provide vistas of the property from time to time provide a sense of mystery and beauty.

Roads can be constructed by using topo maps, soil maps, and a hands-on knowledge of the land. If the proper materials are used to make a road, it will be easily maintained and accessible year around. It some areas, roads can simply be trails that you drive over time after time. However, some areas have soils that are not conducive to good road building so other construction materials have to be used.

Habitat experience, whether hunting or looking, can be ruined by a poor road. People want to leave habitat feeling good, not like they need a kidney transplant.

SAFETY

Habitat design work should always consider safety for man, dog, and wildlife a priority. One of the first recommendations I make to property owners is to secure the property line. Times have changed and unfortunately, people don’t respect property lines like they used to. If possible, put a road around the property and post the line according to the laws of your state or country.

If you are going to have designated shooting courses on your property, make sure they are separated by enough space that on the off chance more than one course is being used, shot fall will not be a problem. If you hunt upland birds and big game on the same property, designate specific areas for both. Put time and distance between hunters.

Habitat management will often include prescribed burning in woodlands. Proper placement of fire lanes will enhance safety for people, possessions, and wildlife.

MAINTENANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Time and money are the last practical considerations in the maintenance and management of habitat. If your design includes perennial or reseeding food-patch species, you will significantly reduce habitat costs. If areas to be worked on can be reached through a network of well-maintained primary roads and service trails, time will be efficiently used.

A well-designed habitat map will help management personnel stay on target. Activities need to be done on certain parts of the property at specific times. This map along with a timetable will be an invaluable tool.

ENVIRONMENTAL SOUNDNESS

Habitat should be designed so that poisons will not have to be used to control weeds and insects. Proper selection of food and cover species will help in this regard. Mechanical control is possible and effective for many weeds.

Don’t panic if you see predators. Properly designed habitat will provide good escape cover and challenge the best of predators. If predator control becomes necessary, use traps or bullets, but not poison. Remember, hawks, owls, and eagles are off limits.

Take care around wetlands. They are a valuable part of natural habitat systems adding both beauty and function.

THE HUMAN COMPONENT

The longer you work with wildlife habitat, the more you will appreciate the designs of nature. However, because so many habitats have been either destroyed or is deteriorating, it is up to us to create or renovate habitat to ensure a continued place for wildlife to thrive and for man to enjoy the bounty thereof. By giving consideration to some design basics, habitat will be attractive and more functional than that developed without any forethought or planning.

NOTE 3

Keep It Simple

Habitat for quail or for that matter, wildlife in general, is a complex mixture of physical and environmental components. Habitat quality varies with the time of year and from year to year. Weather conditions can have positive or negative effects on habitat components. Human activities can have either positive or adverse effects on the homelife of quail. And as most of you know, predators add further chaos to habitat health. No one, regardless of how much experience or education, has all the answers. But it is important to remember, in spite of the complexity, it is possible to do some straightforward management to improve conditions for quail and other wildlife.

DON’T BE INTIMIDATED

Habitat management is not brain surgery. If you can dedicate some money and time to the project, you can make improvements. To ensure that your time and money are well spent, you need to make decisions. Decisions have to