Where did my quail go? Vol. 2
I received this question via e-mail today (23 Feb 05) from a quail hunter whose lease is in Concho County, near Millersview.
I have a situation that I'd like to share, in the hope that you might have some comments. We have a real nice 1800 acre habitat, and a very sizable quail population, finding an average of 8-10 coveys in a 3 hour walk with dogs. In mid-January, our nice quail population virtually disappeared, over the space of one week. We didn't hunt them out obviously, nor was there a weather factor that could have wiped out so many birds so quickly. The rancher had salted the pasture road that week with some 10-year old wheat that was dry and very hard. It didn't look moldy, but it laid on the road for a month, uneaten for the most part. I'm wondering why doves or other birds in the area haven't eaten it, and suspicious that the wheat may have done our quail in. Do you have any thoughts or experiences that might help to explain what happened to our quail, maybe related to bad grain? We have more of the wheat, if you think it should be tested.
My reply:
A couple of possible theories relative to your quail situation:
1) the quail are still there; you just missed them;
2) something indeed did happen to them, and that something MIGHT have been related to the wheat. Wheat is not commonly associated with aflatoxins (like corn or peanuts might be); perhaps it had been treated with some type of fungicide (but most of them don't pose a great threat to birds). I cannot explain why birds have shunned the wheat. You could send it to the Office of the State Chemist at Texas A&M and have it tested for aflatoxins; not sure where you'd send it for any other pesticide exposure, but they could likely tell you.
3) some type of disease decimated them (but no such disease has been documented in wild quail in Texas [to date]).
My guess is (most of) the birds are still there. How many times have you hunted since mid-Jan and struck out? I suggest you conduct some early morning "covey call counts" to inventory your quail abundance. To do so, you'll need to be onsite about 40 minutes before official sunrise and count the number of different coveys giving the "koil-ee" call. See http://teamquail.tamu.edu for more information on the fall covey call count (go to the "Texas Quail Index").
There have been a number of locations in Texas where the quail have apparently "blinked out" over the past 4 months. No consistent pattern of clues, except that the local hunters think they've vanished.
DR
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