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Post by Jake on Jan 27, 2020 8:53:49 GMT -6
What kind of native grass do you have Jake? If you can grow blue stem, that sure seemed to produce a lot of birds back when we had them. As a side note, there's a coating on it that protects the protein in the grass for cattle through late in the winter if left undisturbed. Native around here is what I've heard termed buffalo grass. The improved grasses outside of bermuda produce better quail here. Big blue, little blue, side oats grama, switch, indian. There's a little buffalo grass in spots but it's not prevalent. |
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Post by backhoeboogie on Jan 27, 2020 10:19:25 GMT -6
Up into the late 80's there were several covies of quail hanging around my place. There are thousands of acres around that are all natural. Nothing changed except the quail are gone. We have always had predators. There is still blue stem growing around my place.
Turkey are still abundant. You would think their fate would be the same as quail. Some biologist argued a decade ago that people feeding corn year round to deer introduces some type of mold or something that quail cannot live thru.
I don't know the answer. I can just tell you that there are all natural environments still around. The quail used to thrive there. They are gone.
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Post by Jake on Jan 27, 2020 13:35:52 GMT -6
Up into the late 80's there were several covies of quail hanging around my place. There are thousands of acres around that are all natural. Nothing changed except the quail are gone. We have always had predators. There is still blue stem growing around my place. Turkey are still abundant. You would think their fate would be the same as quail. Some biologist argued a decade ago that people feeding corn year round to deer introduces some type of mold or something that quail cannot live thru. I don't know the answer. I can just tell you that there are all natural environments still around. The quail used to thrive there. They are gone. How much of the "natural" has been allowed to burn and regenerate? Quail are a species that evolved around fire and require new successional growth. Similar to grouse, logging and fires are good for those bird populations. Old growth is good for turkeys |
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Post by backhoeboogie on Jan 28, 2020 9:47:40 GMT -6
Up into the late 80's there were several covies of quail hanging around my place. There are thousands of acres around that are all natural. Nothing changed except the quail are gone. We have always had predators. There is still blue stem growing around my place. Turkey are still abundant. You would think their fate would be the same as quail. Some biologist argued a decade ago that people feeding corn year round to deer introduces some type of mold or something that quail cannot live thru. I don't know the answer. I can just tell you that there are all natural environments still around. The quail used to thrive there. They are gone. How much of the "natural" has been allowed to burn and regenerate? Quail are a species that evolved around fire and require new successional growth. Similar to grouse, logging and fires are good for those bird populations. Old growth is good for turkeys That whole area burned off completely in '90. I lost 3 barns and most all of my fences. Fire started 3/4 a mile away from me and spread in all directions. About a dozen homes were lost.
No quail. We have had fires elsewhere in practically the same scenario. Some years are worse than others. No quail. No horned toads either.
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Post by the illustrious potentate on Jan 29, 2020 13:57:42 GMT -6
I agree bhb. I started to say so earlier but didn't.
Yes, I think environment matters, so does predator populations and weather.
But we had a die off in the mid/late 90's over about a 3 year period that they never recovered. And with their ability to procreate, that is an anomaly.
Sure practices change in time, but in the grand scheme of farming/ranching, nothing changes that quickly. Too many people with too many differences in management and purposes.
We went from around a quail to every acre of grassland and much is grass, to seeing maybe a covey or two over the entire winter...maybe.
I've never bought the environment argument. Sure, we might not get back to what we once had because in 25 years practices have changed to some degree, but something else caused the decline.
For the first time since the mid 90's I saw 2 coveys on a quarter we have this fall. Gave me a little hope they might be trying to come back.
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Post by the illustrious potentate on Jan 29, 2020 14:04:52 GMT -6
I don't believe the corn mold theory either. We had very few deer back then, and corn feeders just weren't being used much in this area.
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Post by backhoeboogie on Jan 30, 2020 11:51:19 GMT -6
I don't believe the corn mold theory either. We had very few deer back then, and corn feeders just weren't being used much in this area. Even if you do give that theory credit, how do you explain areas with no feeders ? It is just like the burn thing. We have had hundreds of acres burned off here in Texas just about every year. Some years worse than others.
The real answer is simply not known, but something happened.
We had fire ants in the 70's here. We were inundated with quail for two decades following.
We had horned toads here in the 70s. They disappeared about a decade before the quail did, but I still have beds of red ants too.
My grandchildren have never seen quail or horned toads. :-(
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