Good thinking, but there is a decline where there are no feeders.

Well,now they have machinery that gets right along the fence lines to fertilize and kill bugs.therefore, there are no bugs for the quail to eat and less cover for them to hide in.

Thanks NP. I'll have to check that out.

I have some feeder pics that guy/gal would like to see I'll bet.

Is there any link or more descriptors to the article. I haven't been able to successfully google it. What I have been able to find is recent articles quoting studies from '62 all the way back to '43 on raptor predation. Talk about worthless data...

I was at our place this past week and their were lots of hawks working all over the ranch(wish I knew the bread, they had white band around the tail feathers). A couple were giving the prairie dogs hell. Ground owls numbers were increasing too and I think I saw a Mexican eagle.

FWIW - for the last 4-5 years we get decent numbers right up to October then BAM their numbers get cut by 70%. I also think the ice storms back in December may have put the hurt on them as well.

There was a time when our Blues coveys were 50-100 birds and you could see 30 coveys in a day....not anymore.

We were covered up with quail this year. I felt guilty about reporting all my hunts. Our pastures had help from Quail Coalition and Jim Willis. Here's what he's done in our area;



http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/...ail-1764954.php

CAT SPRING — The sparse beauty of the tall grasses and sand plum trees at WW Ranch makes this land near the San Bernard River appear unchanged from a century ago. But the still life can be deceptive.

When hunting buddies Jim Willis and John Webb purchased the 225-acre ranch in 2000, the overgrazed property had become "a wildlife desert," as Willis phrased it. The pasture couldn't support anything but cattle.

So, they replaced the so-called improved grasses commonly planted in the area with native varieties, such as little bluestem and switchgrass, to restore habitat for bobwhite quail and other birds. Scores of them now nest in the grasses while the ranch's cattle graze nearby.

What is happening here is a vision that many see as the coastal prairie's salvation. Biologists blame the loss of habitat, primarily from development and modern farming practices, for a 75 percent drop in Texas' quail population in the past 30 years.

I also believe that raptors take a lot of quail. On my place here there were no corn feeders 2 yrs ago on not many raptors to speak of. Now I have corn and protein feeders and have seen raptors working the quail on a regular basis. Coons also are bad due to feeders, but I have worked on the coons/bobcats/coyotes over the last 1.5 yrs now. Coons are way down in numbers so it will be interesting to see what happens with the quail. I do not hunt them right now and have good ground cover with no cattle at this time. All raptors and predators have increased since the late 60's to early 70's. Predator were trapped down in high numbers each year due to a good fur market. A kid could make some really good money trapping back then. The quail have gone down in numbers starting about the same time. The one thing that has increased tremendously in the past decade are wild hogs. I know a guy who put out 100 fake quail nests on his ranch in Atascosa County in the early 2000's. He used trail cameras to monitor them and he also checked them on a regular basis to see if they had been hit or destroyed. At the time he was doing this the early numbers showed that well over 60% of the fake nests were hit by wild hogs. On my place wild hogs were terrible when I got here. I have trapped off 47 now and there is very little sign of hogs using my place like they had been and any new fence will be net wire. I put in one mile of net wire on my south side and it helped slow them down. I am sure the neighbors are working on the hogs also. So I will be interested to see what happens in the future with the quail here with the varmint work and hog control I have been doing over the past 1.5 yrs.

I only recall 1 hawk in the blind, the rest have been owls.

We do have more hawks than I can shake a stick at though. I do find piles of quail feathers in trails while walking around, I would assume its bobcats or yotes, wouldn't think a hawk would sit down in a very close quarters brushy trail to eat, most cary them ontop of our blinds or metal building to eat.

I still think fire ants is the major thing. We don't have any in our area.

I have seen the hawks catch a few dove in flight. Cant say I have ever seen one catch a quail, but don't doubt it.

The quail population we see fluctuates with rain in years when we have good rain they are almost a nuisances and dry years you don't see as many. Ill agree with the its not one thing all on its own.

in the late 70's and early 80s we had plenty of quail here and hawks but when the fireants moved in after the grass farms were getting cranked up the quail numbers dropped so much so that i havent seen a quail around here in over 5 years and when i did it was only a couple of them...the hawks may be a problem in yalls neck of the woods and they may be here to an extent but the fire ants and lack of natural environment around here in my eyes is what led to this....we used to have them everywhere

I keep this picture in my library for when people blame the decline on fire ants. I don't like those suckers either, but we have fire ants and quail. Look at the size of the fire ant bed in the lower right corner;

Some of the dryer years are the best in the coastal bend area. We want weeds, not grass.

We were covered up with quail this year. I felt guilty about reporting all my hunts. Our pastures had help from Quail Coalition and Jim Willis. Here's what he's done in our area;



http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/...ail-1764954.php

CAT SPRING — The sparse beauty of the tall grasses and sand plum trees at WW Ranch makes this land near the San Bernard River appear unchanged from a century ago. But the still life can be deceptive.

When hunting buddies Jim Willis and John Webb purchased the 225-acre ranch in 2000, the overgrazed property had become "a wildlife desert," as Willis phrased it. The pasture couldn't support anything but cattle.

So, they replaced the so-called improved grasses commonly planted in the area with native varieties, such as little bluestem and switchgrass, to restore habitat for bobwhite quail and other birds. Scores of them now nest in the grasses while the ranch's cattle graze nearby.

What is happening here is a vision that many see as the coastal prairie's salvation. Biologists blame the loss of habitat, primarily from development and modern farming practices, for a 75 percent drop in Texas' quail population in the past 30 years.

I belonged to Quail Unlimited for awhile but dropped out. Good outfit, they are mostly geared to improving quail habitat. If you don't do it right you can spend a lot of money for nothing. They don't have fire ants up north but their quail numbers are down so I think maybe fire ants might be part of the trouble but not the whole story. I know it sounds crazy to drag muskrats into this issue but they are multiple like mad and for their numbers to drop- must be some reason. Fur prices are back up but for years the fur was so cheap no one trapped. Most furbearers eat eggs, small birds, etc.

I hunt near the goose hunting Capitol of the world. Hawks can make a good living on crippled geese in my area.

I personally feel its a combo of ariel and ground predators.

Two big things banning of DDT and loss or softening of fur market/goverement trapping.

Banning of DDT and protection has brought back the ariel predators to all time highs. The soft fur market and less trapping has brought back high numbers of ground predators (skunks, yotes, coons, foxs, bob cats, feral cats, etc)

Great thread here. Everyone brings up good points and it's promising to see y'all come together and share first hand knowledge of what you're seeing at your places. The next question then becomes "what can we do about it."

We had good quail numbers this year at our place. Not quite the best, but very good. A couple of things we do to help them is this. Whenever we are out there, all varmints are shot on site unless it is going to screw up your hunt. We keep traps out often so we are constantly catching and destroying these animals. The other thing we do is take sacks of milo and go around the ranch where we have located coveys and pour some out under brushy areas where quail will have good cover and will be able to eat safely away from predators. We also usually mark those bushes with flagging tape so that we can consistently pour milo in the same area for them. There has been a lot of talk on here seeing hawks near feeders. It sounds like the quail are coming to the feeders to eat on the corn, but the hawks have figured that out. If you put the milo in the safe zones, it gives the quail an option besides going to the feeder.

Those two things have certainly helped us maintain our population.

Great thread here. Everyone brings up good points and it's promising to see y'all come together and share first hand knowledge of what you're seeing at your places. The next question then becomes "what can we do about it."

We had good quail numbers this year at our place. Not quite the best, but very good. A couple of things we do to help them is this. Whenever we are out there, all varmints are shot on site unless it is going to screw up your hunt. We keep traps out often so we are constantly catching and destroying these animals. The other thing we do is take sacks of milo and go around the ranch where we have located coveys and pour some out under brushy areas where quail will have good cover and will be able to eat safely away from predators. We also usually mark those bushes with flagging tape so that we can consistently pour milo in the same area for them. There has been a lot of talk on here seeing hawks near feeders. It sounds like the quail are coming to the feeders to eat on the corn, but the hawks have figured that out. If you put the milo in the safe zones, it gives the quail an option besides going to the feeder.

Those two things have certainly helped us maintain our population.

That is an awesome idea with the milo!

I was at a Dale Rollins "Beyond Dogma" seminar in the mid 90's that focused on deer and quail management and supplementing both. Rollins reported that milo was not the best quail feed since in their research (someone actually watched and counted this I am told) that quail needed to eat over 140 grains on average per bird of milo to fill their daily needs. In his opinion that was keeping the bird way to long in the view of raptors or hawks. He suggested things like soybeans or larger higher protein supplements to feed quail so they could eat less and get into cover quicker to keep pressure from predators down.

I was at a Dale Rollins "Beyond Dogma" seminar in the mid 90's that focused on deer and quail management and supplementing both. Rollins reported that milo was not the best quail feed since in their research (someone actually watched and counted this I am told) that quail needed to eat over 140 grains on average per bird of milo to fill their daily needs. In his opinion that was keeping the bird way to long in the view of raptors or hawks. He suggested things like soybeans or larger higher protein supplements to feed quail so they could eat less and get into cover quicker to keep pressure from predators down.

I think we are the big problem for the decline . The modern farming now days

all the farmland creates wide open hunting for the birds of prey and since they have been protected populations have more the rectified themselves.

The pesticide argument doesn't fare well when you realize that farmed land is a very tiny % of the areas where quail decline is seen.

That would be correct for most of Texas that is still considered bird country these days and I probably should not have mentioned chemicals that considered. Guess I am still wondering why they disappeared from the rest of Texas and practically the entire southern USA in far less than half a century.
In any case, those of you who still have some quail, it might serve you well to consider that a chemical which breaks the natural chain of events should be used with extreme caution.

It's a perfect storm. Quail are fragile creatures. There have always been predators. There has always been fragmentation of land. Fire ants, and chemicals probably get their share. Quail can bounce back from short term drought. Long term drought is a different story. Areas that have never seen a plow are being effected.
When it's all said and done, it comes down to water. There has to be enough moisture in the air for chicks to peck their way out of eggs. Climate change, that includes long time drought, is taking it's toll. I think part of the problem is microscopic, also.
Then there is the survival of the fittest thing.

Boys, you better take a close look around-the reptile population is on the brink. No toads, no lizards, no mountain boomers, no water snakes in the willows under a tank dam, no bees, and no quail.

You're one if the lucky ones-by most accounts, by people in the know, there are great concerns on all if those.

Actually modern farming is less distrubing then old school farming. We are much more consequence of soil erosion, so more hedges/rows are left, more crop residue via no-till drilling. Also up to last year CRP program had expanded 10x in size. To enter in the CRP program you have to have previous crop output history

Even with quicker maturing plants I don't see that as that big of an impact. Quail will use crop edges but sledom venture to the middle, espeically with in row crop plants. To open up top

Farmland was a poor word choice. Not pointing fingers at farmers. Just land in general that used to be wild is now being mowed, plowed, etc. Trying to say that the land is better off one way or the is not my argument. What I was getting at is just think about the number of farms, ranches, homesteads now they are smaller and more divided.True farming operations might use less land but think about how many more people own small plots and how many more tractors there are today than 50 years ago. Im sure the numbers would be staggering. People get to a place and want to clean it up, have a big old yard, clear out the brush whichever and it has drastically changed the landscape of today's Texas because every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a tractor, mower, or clears the land and it compounds over time. Ive cleared contiguous pastures that my grandfather cleared. It took him years mostly by hand. My dad continued his work probably doubled his efforts in less time with a small tractor and I will probably triple my dads efforts in my lifetime. it If there was 5 people per square mile in a given county who lived on some land 50 years ago and now its up to 30 think about how much that changes the landscape especially with modern equipment. Chainsaws, brush-hogs, deforesters, not to mention what the oil companies wipe out when they come through. Then you start adding the numbers of livestock living on those cleared pastures and their effect on habitat. So many factors but Im ready for a change in legality on shooting hawks for quail management at least.

Farmland was a poor word choice. Not pointing fingers at farmers. Just land in general that used to be wild is now being mowed, plowed, etc. Trying to say that the land is better off one way or the is not my argument. What I was getting at is just think about the number of farms, ranches, homesteads now they are smaller and more divided.True farming operations might use less land but think about how many more people own small plots and how many more tractors there are today than 50 years ago. Im sure the numbers would be staggering. People get to a place and want to clean it up, have a big old yard, clear out the brush whichever and it has drastically changed the landscape of today's Texas because every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a tractor, mower, or clears the land and it compounds over time. Ive cleared contiguous pastures that my grandfather cleared. It took him years mostly by hand. My dad continued his work probably doubled his efforts in less time with a small tractor and I will probably triple my dads efforts in my lifetime. it If there was 5 people per square mile in a given county who lived on some land 50 years ago and now its up to 30 think about how much that changes the landscape especially with modern equipment. Chainsaws, brush-hogs, deforesters, not to mention what the oil companies wipe out when they come through. Then you start adding the numbers of livestock living on those cleared pastures and their effect on habitat. So many factors but Im ready for a change in legality on shooting hawks for quail management at least.

I see less farm land utilization than I did 30 years ago, also we are at historically low cattle numbers.

I use to be able to find 10-15 coveys a day on family land in north eastern oklahoma, now maybe two coverys. That lands been in my family in some form for over 70 years, and operations haven't changed.

Just think there is more too it. The one thing that has changed is Aerial and ground predator numbers.

Similar thing on my ranch in western oklahoma, blues are almost gone. Same cattle numbers/per rain fall and rotational grazing pattern for the last 60 years,

Overgrazing is one thing but timely flashed grazed pastures is almost a must with quail habitat... cattle can be a great tool for any wildlife management if seasonal grazing is done right

Right lol I was agreeing with you