doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Wild Birds vs. Game Preserves

JDW - not a feeder, but there's a couple of bushes there whose berries both the quail and tweety birds eat. Plus there's some prickly pear whose fruit is like a quail magnet.

I grew up hunting wild quail in middle and south Georgia, over patch-work farms full of birds and good dogs ...first my grandfather's, then my own. Preserves were something I read about in magazines.

Then, starting in the'60s farmers in Georgia were encouraged to go to fence-row to fence-row cultivation and to plant any "waste land" in pine plantations. The quail began to disappear in my part of the country.

By the late '80s wild bird hunting was a waste of time. The first preserves began springing up around here. I still had my dogs, so I signed up for an expensive membership in one of these. My dogs thought they'd gone to some sort of heaven where all the birds too dumb to fly and were all sick or wounded or something. If I shot two on a covey rise the dogs would bring back five or so.

I gave it up and let my kennel die off while I got too old and fat to walk the woods all day. Despite an effort of late by the Dept. of Natural Resources to bring back the quail, the only quail shooting left around here is of the kick'em up variety. I still don't much like it, but I'll go 5 or 6 times a year now, when invited by others. It is too expensive and too dangerous to suit me...Geo

When you increase prey bird population vastly mother nature makes changes to preditors at the same time. If I had not increased the Dove population by 20 fold or the quail population by 10 fold the hawk population would have never been a factor or even noticed. But if you open a deli and stock it with fresh meats do nt be surprised if someone comes in and eats some of it.

I do not care about the hawks that much when it comes to doves but I do for quail. I have taken some steps to make their impact as minimal as possible for the quail. The easiest thing to do was to removbe several trees that they like to rest in and watch for the quail to come and go form roost to feeding areas. There are no close by convient perches for the hawks to pounch from. If you do not think that the hawks are killing my doves I can show you where doves have been killed every day. But one out of hundreds is no big deal, even to the doves.

I think that my real problem that is impacting my quail is turkeys. Turkeys impact quail nesting very heavily around my farm and I failed to reduce the turkey population last year. I know of one quail nest that they destroyed for certain and suspect several more.

That will not happen this year. In fact I want to make it so hot for the turkeys that they come out undergound to keep out of my sight. I hope that reducing the population of the turkeys several dozen this year and next spring will reduce their effect on the quail.

Feral cats run out of spare lives very quickly on my farm. About 2750 fps fast.

The observation about the fence row to fence row farming is fair to note. It cetrainly eliminated a lot of nesting, feeding and rest areas for game birds. I miss hedge rows, ditch banks with decent cover and weed patches. But many farmers need every acre that they can plant just to make a living and I do not dismiss thier needs over mine. Still it is a shame.

In the area in and around Ames Plantation (home of the National Bird Dog Field Trials and the Bird Dog Museum) farming practices have changed very little and habitat has been tailored for quail but there has been little improvement in the wild quail population.
In the area there is probably less farming now than when we really had lots of wild quail.

Around Ames Plantation (Grand Juntion Tn.)the quail were gone before we had any turkeys. So I don't blame them.

Mr.Dunn of the old "Dunns Supply" at Grand Junction told me they had pictures of turkeys raiding a quail nest at Ames Plantation.
I do know a turkey will eat most any thing but I don't believe them to be smart enough to actively seek out a quail nest on a steady basis.
L.F.

I think you would be surprised at how much damage fire ants do to quail eggs.. large ant hills have taken over in the south....Alabama used to be king of quail, I still can find decent sized coveys, but nothing like 10 or more years ago, my best "haunts" are now housing subdivisions.

We lost our quail before we had the fire ants in this area.
The first fire ants I saw here were in the mid to late 1980's.
L.F.

It must be from poaching then, because hawks aren't the problem here.
The quail have gone from my property(Missouri was the #1 quail state at one time) due to this.
Now that I keep a tighter grip on the land, I hope they'll return - I've not shot quail there in years, and as a matter of fact, I've changed from upland to waterfowling because of this.
Being right-off the Missouri River, and flyway pushed me in that direction also.
PS The love of Labs too!

poaching ?

When Hawks migrate you figure they fly around Missouri ?
In winter I've counted over 200 hundred hawks in two hundred miles in the Mississippi delta when I was riding the rails.
L.F.

You know, the guys who sneak under your fences when your not there. The guys who'll trespass on your land, have no qualms about shooting as many birds as they can.
Most likely locals, who have sold the farm, but still have a hankering to hunt and fish - but at your expense!