I'll list each month with a brief description of activities you can perform and then a more detailed post of each afterward with helpful articles, videos, pictures, etc. Wildlife biologists (or anyone with knowledge) are more than welcome to chime in. I just put this out there for our local Pheasants Forever chapter in Nebraska. By no means am I an expert or suggesting such.
January - Edge feather wooded tree lines to create low growth cover for quail
February - Broadcast desirable seedings over snow/ground while ground is freezing and thawing to work the seed into the soil
March - Enhance native shrubs by killing competitive vegetation (particularly brome and fescue) in and around the shrubs. Do this with Glyphosate while shrubs are dormant.
April - Burn
May - Flash Graze stands of grass that are too thick with cool season grasses
June - Plants sorghum food plots
July - Hack n Squirt thinning of forest stands that are too dense and don't allow proper under growth
August - Flash Graze stands of grass that are too thick with warm season grasses
September - Prepare firebreaks for the next spring by either mowing or planting green firebreaks such as alfalfa or clover
October - Perform fall discing on habitat where grass is too thick. This encourages forbs, legumes and annual grass growth that is beneficial to quail populations
November - Glyphosate application on cool season grasses (brome and fescue) after desirable natives go dormant. (If I had to pick one single management practice to apply on my ground, this would be it!)
December - Establish open canopy areas in heavily forested areas to allow sunlight penetration and development of early succession undergrowth. A chainsaw and quart of Tordon can go a long way in helping your quail.
Hinging or cutting trees around the edge of a forested area, or along a tree line can create instant Covey Headquarters, or a home base for a covey of quail. These areas are best when vegetation is not thick underneath so quail can escape ground predators on foot, yet have overhead cover to protect them from avian predators such as hawks.
Often times on properties some reseeding may need to be done. Particularly in cases where smooth brome or fescue stands have become too dense. Obviously this reseeding can be done in spring or fall with a no till drill. But another way, and often times a simpler and cheaper way to do this is to broadcast seed over ground when it is in a freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw cycle. This works the seed into the ground and assures good seed-soil contact.
On my property I have several patches where brome has overtaken, with only remnants of native grass left. This creates an environment where 3 problems occur. 1) The vegetation at ground level is so dense that birds, chicks in particular, can't freely move about and escape predation. 2) As brome goes dormant in July and August the insect density that chicks feed off of become very sparse. And 3) when winter snow events hit, brome has a tendency to lay down on itself leaving very little cover during the periods where birds need it most. I've had very good luck by doing a fall spraying of the brome (more on that later) and then broadcast seeding a diverse wildflower mix over the top of the snow in February.
Covey Headquarters (CHQ) are only secondary to food on the list of quail necessities. Essentially quail need a kitchen (food source) and a bedroom (CHQ). And the closer those two items are the less quail will expose themselves. Quail are seldom more than 100 yds from their CHQ, so maintaining the CHQ is important in quail survivability. CHQs are most often woody cover that provides overhead cover from predators and yet has a thick enough stem density that ground predators have difficulty preying on quail.
Some things to consider when creating/enhancing CHQs 1) Bare dirt or thin vegetation at ground level is important. This allows quail to move about easily as well as provide an area to dust themselves off and remove mites, ticks, etc. 2) Literature states that 1500 sq. ft. or more is the preferred size of CHQ used by quail. 3) Stem density of roughly one stem per square foot of CHQ is optimal. These stems disrupt ground predators travel, yet allows quail to move about freely.
In March I do several things to enhance shrub thickets. Around this part of Nebraska (and most of midwest) plum thickets tend to be too old. As they age they tend to become less dense. As this happens they tend to allow more light penetration and more unwanted vegetative growth underneath them. This inhibits quail movement throughout. These thickets also have a tendency to have large trees growing in them. Eventually these trees choke out the plum thicket that at one time held quail. If the thickets appear aged and useless, I take a chainsaw or skid steer and cut them down at ground level. Typcially by the first of May these thickets will come back much more dense and healthy. If trees are cut I also apply Tordon so they don't regrow. The thickets will grow 2-3' per year and once again be a viable CHQ within 2-3 after cutting them to ground level.
Another thing I like to do is find small plum shrubs in the fall, flag them and try to speed the spread of their sucker roots in the spring. By applying glyphosate in late March or early April to the shrub area before they gain foliage, it kills off competing vegetation in and around the shrub. They tend to spread each direction 5-10' each direction when competing vegetation is eliminated. Within a few years a single stem of a plum shrub can sucker out and turn into the desired 1500 sq ft. CHQ.
The above 2 methods are the quickest, cheapest and easiest ways to establish CHQs. But if no shrub thickets are around to enhance, a planting of 30' x 50' plots can be planted. Generally we plant them at 2.5' spacings. This may take 5 years or more before they can be viable CHQs for quail. But it is an option.
Here's a picture about 1 month after cutting shrubs down to ground level, then spraying the surrounding grass to encourage increased suckering of the shrub roots. Notice the regrowth......
Here's a picture at ground level a couple years after enhancing shrubs. Notice the bare dirt and open space at ground level.....
Here's a picture of regrowth 2 years after enhancing.....
Burning to re-establish native prairie is pretty well documented. I'll try to edit and add articles as I go. But one thing I wanted to mention is the multiplicative affect of burning followed by a flash graze in conjuction with each other. In my experience this has done a tremendous job of setting back non-native vegetation and giving an advantage to natives. It replicates the natural action that occurred on the prairie in which a prairie fire was usually followed by a graze by thousands of buffalo. This stimulates native forbs and legumes that are beneficial to quail.
Below is a picture of a fire whirl on one of the fires we performed that I thought was cool....
But generally speaking, my attitude toward working with fire is as follows (very labor intensive if proper firebreaks aren't installed)........
Neat stuff. Our bobs, originally quite plentiful, disappeared 7 or 8 years ago. There were very few land usage changes. I never hunted them because I enjoyed seeing them come to the milo feeders that I built around the house. I've not seen or heard one in years.
Edited to keep the 12 months back to back (in previous posts).
I really like the idea of glyphosate treating the cool season grasses once the WSG go dormant.
Picloram works well for hack and squirt too.
You can also just squirt (basal spray) on trees/shrubs that are less than 2" DBH (diameter breast height) without hacking. I'll edit this post later with the name of the stuff that I use. There is both water based and oil based stuff. I found out that basal spraying works well if done at the correct time. If done in January when there's a foot of snow on the ground it doesn't work so well...... It needs to be done near the base of the trees/shrubs, not 12"+ above the ground.
Scott, great questions and I'm glad you asked. I'll get to the flash graze discussion when I fill that month in. But essentially its loading a grassland with cattle/horses at extreme levels and doing short duration/intensive grazing to thin your grass stand and return the grassland to a more diverse vegetative community. It replicates what buffalo did to the prairie before their removal.
Dave Davidson 1, OK now the difficult question as to where your quail went while you didn't notice any changes in land use. Keep in mind with my answer I am no expert, and certainly don't know your situation at all and every one is unique. But TYPICALLY this is what happens when quail disappear from a landscape when there has been no apparent change in the landscape.......
I'll do my best to explain this, but when I look at upland habitat, I look at two types of vegetation. 1) Grassland and 2) Woody Cover. Both of these types are ever changing and are in different stages of succession. During native prairie days, fire and buffalo 'flash grazing' were always the reset button to set these two types of vegetation back to early stages of succession. Early succession vegetation is the type that quail like. By this, you need to picture a disked dirt field. The first year after being disked your typical succession of vegetation is a field full of forbs and legumes, or weeds, in common lingo. You end up with wild sunflowers, ragweed, etc. Quail love this type of cover for several reasons 1) It provides overhead cover yet at the same time leaves enough bare ground they can easily run away from predators 2) provides what I call ample 'summer food plots'. During summer months upland birds typically don't feed on grains, but prefer higher protein insects. Forbs and legumes provide this at much higher densities than monocultures of grass and 3) They provide plenty of seed for consumption in winter months. Typically what happens with grasslands that aren't reset to early succession vegetation is they become thick stands of grass that don't provide any of the above. Particularly when herbicide is used to remove the forbs and legumes (weeds). Its a slow process, but it happens. Many of the monthly activities above are designed to help landowners reset the succession of their vegetation to more quail friendly habitat.
Now to woody cover. This is much like grassland vegetation in its slow, unnoticed progression toward cover that is not as quail friendly. Except it happens at a much slower rate. Where grassland deteriorates over years, woody cover takes decades to deteriorate. Just as grassland cover progresses from quail friendly environments heavy in forbs and legumes to monocultures of grass, woody cover typically progresses from quail friendly shrubs and shorter trees to tall, mast bearing trees that are more friendly to whitetail deer, turkey and avian predators like hawks. I suspect you caught the last few years of quail producing days on your property as it was deteriorating into a landscape more friendly for other species.
To improve quail habitat often we need to hit the reset button, and set the vegetative succession back to a stage that is more quail friendly. And hopefully do it in a manner that doesn't disrupt deer and turkey at the same time.
Dave, would you have any interest in throwing up a satellite image of your place? Maybe we could get a better idea of what is happening to the landscape.
Dave had the quail disappear, and I changed your post. I edited Dave's post as it was between your Nov and Dec postings. I thought it was better if all the months were consecutive, but didn't want to lose Daves post. The only way that I knew how to save it was to quote it and re-post it.
If flash grazing is not an option, are there other alternatives out there? Does annual/bi-annual burning replace that before greenup in the spring?
Dave had the quail disappear, and I changed your post. I edited Dave's post as it was between your Nov and Dec postings. I thought it was better if all the months were consecutive, but didn't want to lose Daves post. The only way that I knew how to save it was to quote it and re-post it.
If flash grazing is not an option, are there other alternatives out there? Does annual/bi-annual burning replace that before greenup in the spring?
How does predator control fit into the equation?
I think you can accomplish the same thing by doing a fall spraying and interseeding. And you can probably do it much quicker than you can with flash grazing. Sorry about the mix up on Dave's post.
I like burning, but it is labor intensive in most cases and of course can be dangerous. Again, I've had quicker and easier success with fall spraying and interseeding. But there are cases where burning works better.
