Category: Quail Hunting

Texas is still plagued by a long-term drought, but this year much of the state received enough timely rain to promote robust nesting by bobwhite quail. The reproduction effort this year will spur population growth that will should support what could be the best quail hunting season than in recent memory. But even if things are looking better this season, such short-term population changes do not reflect the long-term downward trend of Texas quail.

Since 1980, bobwhite populations in Texas have declined at a rate of about 5.6 percent per year. Scaled quail populations in western Texas have declined at a rate of about 2.9 percent per year. These numbers add up – or down to be more correct – to a 75 percent loss in bobwhites and a 66 percent loss in scaled quail. Many reasons are cited for the declines, but evidence points to changes in the quantity and quality of habitat as the leading cause.

Besides quail, at least 24 other grassland birds are all in serious decline. The situation was highlighted in the “The State of the Birds 2014” report released Sep. 9, billed as the most comprehensive review of long-term trend data for U.S. birds ever conducted. The report stated “Since 1968, the grasslands indicator for 24 obligate breeding birds declined by nearly 40%.” This explains why birding groups like the American Bird Conservancy are partners in the quail initiative. By restoring grassland habitat, it benefits many birds at the ecosystem level.

“Birds like the scissor-tailed flycatcher, even the meadowlark, a traditionally common bird that is now in decline—none of these birds are hunted, so hunting is not the issue,” Perez said. “Even though the bobwhite is our flagship species, we don’t have a narrow focus on a single species; we know when we improve grassland habitat we’re helping dozens of bird species.”

There was some good news for grassland birds in the national report, which went on to say their “…decline flattened out beginning in 1990. This recent stabilization noted in the 2009 report continues today, reflecting the significant investments made in grassland bird conservation…Conservation works!”

Quail restoration grants are guided by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Upland Game Bird Strategic Plan, a five year road map for quail recovery. This in turn is part of a national umbrella plan, the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative.

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It’s been a tough run for quail over the past few years. Persistent drought has hammered many species, but bobwhite quail have really suffered due to poor nesting habitat across Texas. But quail respond readily to the addition of water, as was the case in 2014. Much-needed rainfall at the right times this year are helping to bolster bobwhite quail numbers and should lead to improved hunting compared to last season, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologists.

Texas quail season opens statewide on October 25 and runs through February 20, 2015.The daily bag limit for quail is 15, with 45 in possession. Legal shooting hours for all non-migratory game birds are 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset. The bag limit is the maximum number that may be killed during the legal shooting hours in one day.

Continued drought conditions over much of the core quail hunting areas in the spring and summer of 2013 resulted in below average production last year and many ranches opted to limit hunting last season in hopes to aid local recovery.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) quail surveys show modest recovery this year, thanks to adequate range conditions during the nesting season. Biologists stress that additional winter rains are needed to aid continued population recovery into next spring and summer.

One region indicative of a positive shift is the Gulf Prairies where TPWD quail surveys showed 19.9 bobwhites were observed per route compared to 11.3 last year and is a record high for this area.

“Bobwhite are less dependent on rainfall in this region, where there is usually enough moisture available for nesting,” said TPWD wildlife biologist Robert Perez. “Habitat conditions in areas of native rangeland are in good condition. Hunters should focus on the central and lower coast in native prairie habitats.”

Most of the quail country around the state saw similar improvement in quail numbers compared to last year, although still below the long term average since quail surveys began in 1978. In South Texas, for example, surveys showed 11.6 birds per route compared to 6 last year. This is below the long term average of 17.4 and is predictive of a below average hunting season for the region as a whole. However, field staff and ranch-level surveys on private and public lands are reporting above average numbers in many areas.

In the Rolling Plains, rangelands are in recovery and where grazing has been reduced, Perez said prime nesting habitat is definitely more available than last year. Field reports suggest that many areas have improved enough to support limited hunting and last year’s hot spots will likely improve this season.

“Although there are certainly areas within each region where some quail hunting opportunity remains, this survey is not designed to detect changes in localized populations, especially in fragmented landscapes,” Perez cautioned. “Looking forward, most of the core Texas quail hunting regions did get a flush of vegetation and insects and a corresponding increase in bobwhite reproductive efforts.”

Bobwhite quail have taken it right on the nose in recent years. Hunters have noticed less quail, which means less quail hunting. Much of that can likely be attributed to low rainfall since quail tend to be a boom and bust species, highly levered to habitat conditions. But is that all that is happening with regard to quail? Texans concerned with the widespread decline of wild quail across the state can learn about measures to stop the loss by tuning in to three fall webinars starting September 11, 2014.

The webinars, also set for October 9 and November 13, are a collaborative effort of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The series is part of the Reversing the Quail Decline in Texas Initiative coordinated by Dr. Jim Cathey, AgriLife Extension wildlife specialist at College Station, and Dr. Dale Rollins, retired AgriLife Extension wildlife specialist, San Angelo. Each of the webinars, all slated from noon-1 p.m., can be found on the Forestry Webinar portal at http://www.forestrywebinars.net/.

The September webinar will feature Rollins and Robert Perez, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department quail program leader, La Vernia, presenting “Reversing the Quail Decline in Texas.” The webinar will describe the overall project, and provide background for better understanding the situation and its ramifications. “Quail aren’t the only birds suffering a steep decline in numbers,” Cathey said. “Several species of grassland birds that share habitat with quail are also experiencing a dramatic drop in numbers.

“In our first webinar, we’ll provide an update on how our wild quail and their habitat neighbors are faring today. The webinar will then delve into the Reversing the Quail Decline Initiative’s funded research projects on quail biology and habitat management, as well as the widespread educational efforts that are currently being implemented. This first webinar is meant to serve as a barometer to indicate where wild quail populations are today and what the agencies are doing in support of this very important, legislatively supported initiative.”

Cathey said the Oct. 9 webinar will discuss successful quail habitat restoration efforts, while the Nov. 13 webinar will focus on the Texas Quail Index, a statewide monitoring effort by landowners, AgriLife Extension agents and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologists to evaluate quail populations and the factors that affect them. For more information, contact Cathey at 979-845-7471, jccathey@tamu.edu

Bobwhite Quail and Habitat

Bobwhite quail depend a lot on Spring rainfall, but not because they require surface water, because they don’t. Rather, quail need rainfall to signal the “go nest” sign. Rainfall means quail foods as in important seed-producing plants will grow, insects will be abundant and relatively cooler temperatures. All of these factors are important for nesting hens and their resulting broods. Rain is important, but Texas has been quite low on rain over the past several years. So have quail numbers.

Even the Texas Legislature recognized that bobwhite quail populations were dropping. The quail decline was so extreme that, starting in 2002, Texas funded a program to reverse it. The Texas Quail Index, a partnership of public agencies, private conservation organizations, state university units and private landowners, began as a 12-county demonstration program. In 2014, it encompasses 41 counties and seven wildlife management areas, including one at Victoria County’s McFaddin Ranch.

Although Texas’ wild quail populations are in better shape than states to our east, bobwhite populations statewide have declined an average of 3.6 percent annually since 1978. That’s bad news, especially if you enjoy quail hunting, or worse yet, if you happen to be a quail. But don’t lose faith just yet.

Quail Management: Recovery is Important

Source: Quail are an ecologically- and economically-important resource. Ecologically, they are an indicator species, demonstrating the health of their prairies for wildlife in general. Healthy prairies benefit cattlemen, increasing property values for grazing and hunting use. Rural communities are benefited by hunter and ecotourism expenditures generated by birders traveling to prairies, viewing quail and wintering migratory songbirds.

Land fragmentation, division of rural lands into ever-smaller parcels, is a threat to quail. It, whether accidental or intentional, makes quail-habitat fragmentation almost inevitable. Research shows it disrupts animals’ movement and dispersal, making quail more prone to increased predation and nest parasitism. Equally important – it disturbs quail social structure and genetic diversity and diminishes habitat health because natural events such as cattle-grazing rotation and natural fires are prevented.

As holdings become smaller than 500 acres, native rangeland is usually converted to improved pasture through introduction of non-native grasses. Bermuda, in particular, is too dense to support quail movement. Why? In part, replacement’s done by recreational ranches wanting lowered ad-valorem valuations for acreage designated as “ag use”/open-space. But managing for wildlife, including quail, earns open-space valuation today.

Overcoming Land Fragmentation

Maintaining healthy quail populations requires managing and maintaining habitat size. It takes roughly 700 birds in a contiguous habitat to maintain healthy covies. Wildlife biologists figure, using historic quail densities for Texas, a good habitat would cover a minimum of 3,500 to 7,000 acres. A habitat that size could have one or many owners, as long as landscape-conservation practices are coordinated by landowners. That could be accomplished via wildlife management associations or cooperatives to prevent covey isolation and even improve (defragment) habitat.

The index demonstrations teach landowners to do that. Year-round, standardized-monitoring techniques documenting breeding populations, predation and harvestable population are taught. Training includes monitoring, testing habitat quality, and best practices for improving quail plants for food and cover.

Texas AgriLife agents and volunteers working with them do this “on the ground,” not in a classroom. Each demonstration site is monitored for two years. The objective – providing good habitat, an average 500 nesting sites in randomly selected one-eighth-mile walks. Large and small property owners are encouraged to contact AgriLife Agent Peter McGuill at the Victoria Office to find out about instruction and starting their own quail survey and management program. When managing acreage, Peter says, “Take off that cowboy hat and put on a camo-cap, think like a quail.”

The key to great bobwhite quail hunting can be found in providing high quality habitat. The South Texas Plains and the Rolling Plains of north-central Texas offer the best overall areas for quail hunting and habitat in the state. In relative terms, the overall habitat types occurring in other regions, such as the Edwards Plateau or the eastern side of the Cross Timbers region of central Texas are not known as some of the better quail producing areas of the state. The truth of the matter though is that it can be difficult to manage for quail, even in areas and on properties that provide good quail habitat.

That is because quail populations vary greatly from year to year, even in the best quail producing parts of Texas. The timing and amount of fall and winter rainfall are thought to be the most critical factors that determine quail breeding success and survivability during the next year. Adequate amounts of fall/winter rains are necessary for the soil moisture that promotes the early growth of herbaceous plants, which quail require. It takes several good years to really grow a quail population. Many quail die naturally each winter, whether or not they are hunted, so it takes decent conditions year-in and year-out to maintain a population. Quail populations, like quail hunting in Texas, are boom or bust. The land, however, must be managed for quail in order to take advantage of the rainfall that nature provides.

Quail Habitat Management for Food Production

Bobwhite quail must have a year-round adequate supply of food and reasonable protection from hazards. This includes protection from predators while feeding, resting, loafing, roosting, traveling, and nesting, as well as protection from inclement weather conditions. Both food and cover supply must be stable or continuously renewed during the entire year. It is not enough that food and cover be adequate for 11 months, if either is lacking during a single month.

Food and cover must occur in an well-arranged pattern if they are to comprise quail habitat. The distance between a source of ample food and adequate cover must not be greater than bobwhites can negotiate with safety. As a rule of thumb, bobwhites venture no further than 200 yards from patches of cover. Ideally, escape cover should be linked to food supplies with more or less continuous screening cover. The screening cover must not be dense enough to prove an obstacle to the quail’s short-legged gait. Overgrazed pastures do not provide adequate screening cover. On the flip side, dense stands of thick grass cannot be easily negotiated. Without a suitable space relationship, a range will not be habitable for quail regardless of the quality or amount of food and cover present.

Food supplies are usually most abundant during the spring and summer when seeds are ripening and insects and green plant material are available. The quail food supply begins to diminish at the time of the first killing frost in the fall, and continues to decline throughout the winter due to competition from other animals and from weathering. Seeds from forbs such as croton (doveweed), ragweed, sunflower, partridge pea, and many others are staple winter foods. A number of woody plants provide winter quail food.

Fruits and mast such as small acorns, sumac berries, hackberries, and gum elastic berries supplement quail diets. Most grasses, except for paspalums and panic grasses, do not produce seeds large enough to be worthwhile quail food. In general, forbs are the most important and most widely distributed sources of winter quail food. Green material from cool season forbs and grasses that germinate in the late winter if rainfall is adequate is essential to get quail in good body condition for the upcoming breeding season.

Quail Cover – Necessary for Good Habitat

Bobwhite quail need several types of cover: screening overhead cover for security while feeding and traveling, “tangled” woody cover to retreat into to escape enemies, a “living room” type of cover for dusting or resting, and nesting cover. Roosting cover is also needed, but if other types of cover are present, the roosting cover requirement is usually adequately met.

Cover can take many forms and a patch of cover can meet several of the cover requirements. A stand of broomweed, or similar tall plants with bushy canopies and an open understory at ground level, can provide screening overhead cover. Thickets of low brush, trees, and vines can provide escape and loafing cover. In general, a habitat with between 5% and 15% canopy coverage of good woody cover is adequate, if it occurs in small, well-distributed patches (no more than 200 yards between patches as discussed above).

Patches of residual grasses left over from the previous growing season can provide nesting cover. Individual patches should be at least 8 inches tall and 12 inches in diameter (the size of a cake pan). Ideally, there should be more than 250 well distributed clumps of suitable nesting cover per acre, or 1 clump every 15 to 20 steps. Too little nesting cover makes it easier for predators to find and destroy nests.

Quail Habitat Management Practices

A primary quail management objective is to maintain or create the mosaic of small thickets of low growing woody brush throughout a ranch, as described above in woody cover requirements. Thickets of sumac, briers, agarito, elbowbush, etc. should be retained and encouraged to form in the more open areas of the ranch. Although not as desirable, small clumps of low growing cedars could have some value as cover where other species do not grow or are in short supply. Small patches of low growing cover should be retained during brush clearing operations in the more densely wooded portions of the ranch.

Where vines have grown up into a tree but it is too open at ground level to serve as quail cover, the tree can be cut half through a few feet above ground and pushed over, bringing the living vines closer to the ground. The trunks of multi-stemmed mesquites can be half-cut and pushed over to where the limbs touch the ground but they still continue to grow, forming small areas protected from cattle grazing/deer browsing. Half-cutting mesquite should be done during the early and middle parts of the growing season, not during the dormant season. The “skeletons” of large cut cedars can also form small areas protected from grazing/browsing where patches of herbaceous and woody plants suitable for cover can become established.

The number of browsing animals on the range (combination of wildlife and domestic livestock) needs to be maintained at a level where browsing pressure on low growing woody cover is not excessive. The objective should be to improve the amount and quality of herbaceous cover. A well-planned deferred-rotation livestock grazing system can be used to create the patchy pattern of lightly grazed areas interspersed among more heavily grazed areas needed for nesting cover.

Most good seed producing forbs are early successional stage annuals that respond to soil disturbance that sets back plant succession. Disking the soil is a good habitat management practice for quail that encourages the growth of forbs and other annual plants. Disked strips should be long and meandering and 1 or 2 disc widths wide. The same strips can be disked annually, or side-by-side strips can be disked on an alternating basis every other year to create adjacent strips in various stages of succession. The best plant response will occur in areas of deeper soils. It is important that disked strips be located near escape cover so they are useable by quail. Disking can be done anytime between the first killing frost in the fall and the last frost in the spring, but the optimum time is near the end of winter (January, February) shortly before spring growth gets underway.

Heavy spot grazing by cattle, such as occurs around salt blocks, feed areas, and water, causes soil disturbance that encourages forb growth. Salt blocks and feeding areas should be moved around the ranch to create small patches of disturbed ground.

Managing the habitat for the production of native food plants and cover should be the primary management goal. Supplemental feeding and/or the planting of food plots are not a substitute for good habitat management. These practices should only be considered as “supplements” to the native habitat, not as “cure-alls” for low quality and/or poorly managed habitats. Food plots and feeders alone will not increase the number of quail a range can support if the supplies of other required habitat elements such as cover are limited.

Food Plots for Quail Management

Small food plots of seed producing plants including but not limited to millets, sorghum alum, and sorghum planted on deeper soils near cover can provide supplemental food sources during periods of extreme weather conditions. A limiting factor of supplemental food plots is the insufficient amount of rainfall received in central Texas during most years. During dry years when the production of native foods is limited and supplemental foods are most needed, supplemental plantings will also be failures. During good years in Texas when the production of native foods is adequate, food plots for quail may do well, but are not as necessary. Another limiting factor is that most types of supplemental plantings will have to be protected from livestock grazing by fencing the plot or deferring the pasture.

Supplemental Feeding for Quail Management

Feeding can provide supplemental food during extreme weather conditions, help hold quail in an area, and give hunters areas to key on while quail hunting. Broadcasting corn or sorghum along roads from a vehicle is one method of distributing supplemental feed. It can also be distributed from fixed feeders. An intensive feeding program would be one that provides 1 feeder per every 40 to 60 acres of quail habitat (feeders placed 440 to 540 yards apart in a grid pattern) so that every quail covey has access to several feeders.

One feeder per 75 acres may be sufficient. Feeders less dense than 1 per 160 acres may not provide much benefit. As with all other types of food sources, feeders need to be located near escape and screening cover to be useable by quail. Some limitations of supplemental feeding are: an intensive program can be expensive and labor intensive, feed use by other “non-target” birds and animals may be substantial, diseases and parasites can be spread at heavily used sites, predators learn to key on sites regularly used by quail, and, depending on the type of feeder used, they may have to be fenced from livestock and hogs (in areas where feral hogs are present).

Prescribed burning is an effective, low-cost habitat management tool that can be used to enhance plant diversity by stimulating production of a variety of woody plants, forbs, and grasses. Burning can be used to remove rank stands of herbaceous vegetation and plant litter that hinder quail movements.

Quail Management in a Nutshell

In summary, quail need good habitat to persist on any property and to provide recreational hunting opportunities. Food and all the different types of cover must be available year around and suitably arranged to have a good quail habitat. The number of quail a range can produce and support will be dependent on the habitat element that is most limited. In other words, if cover is the limiting factor, increasing the amount of food beyond that needed for the number of quail that can be supported by the cover will not increase the range’s quail carrying capacity, and vice versa. The rest is up to Mother Nature.

The northern bobwhite quail is a highly social organism that uses vocalization as its primary means of communication within the various social units. These social units include pairs, broods and coveys. Though many bird species use vocalizations for establishing and defending territories, bobwhites are not considered territorial and instead focus their communication on attracting mates, coordinating group movements, and avoidance of predators. Instead of the hundreds of variations of an individual songbird’s song, for example the brown thrasher with its virtual musical library of about 3,000 documented song types, the bobwhite has about 13 or so recognized calls.

Examples of these recognized calls include the assembly or group-movement call, alarm call, food call, and reproduction call. The assembly call is the call that is listened for in the fall during a fall covey count and is described as hoy, hoy-poo, hoy-ee, or koi-lee. The assembly call is typically heard after a covey has been flushed or just prior to sunrise after the covey leaves its roosting site. This helps the flushed covey reassemble and perhaps helps the individual make a mental note about the location of the others as they spread out. The reproduction call, or cock call, is made in the spring and early summer following the seasonal covey break-up as individual males attempt to attract a female. This is the 2 or 3 syllable call that we all know as the bob-white, ah bob-white, or poor bob-white.

The reproduction call can begin as early as March, especially in the south, but the peak calling tends to be May and June. The reproduction call is the target of the breeding season or spring call count. Procedures for establishing and conducting a spring quail call count can be found in The Upland Game Bird Management Handbook for Texas Landowners. The following provides a brief summary of the quail call count and survey procedures.

• Several sites are located within the area that you are interested in surveying. The sites (points) should be at least ¾ of a mile apart to minimize the recording of overlapping calls. Each site should be permanently marked and noted on a map for annual surveying. If you cannot locate the sites at least ¾ of a mile apart on your property, then coordinate with your neighbors to include their properties.
• Print out and bring the standardized data sheets to record the approximate location and distance for individual male bobwhites that you detect. The data sheet represents an aerial map where you will attempt to plot the location of each calling male. Under good conditions and with good hearing, calls can be heard from 500+ yards.
• Arrive at the first site approximately 15 minutes prior to sunrise to start the first 10 minute detection period. Do not conduct the survey if the winds are greater than 6.5 mph, cloud cover is greater than 75%, it is raining, or if the weather is drastically changing. All of these conditions will affect the calling behavior and your ability to hear the calls.
• Record the detections during the 10 minute period at each site. Complete the survey of all sites within two hours after sunrise.
• An estimate of the number of bobwhites per acre can be calculated using a set of assumptions. The estimates and trends over time can be used to monitor the fluctuations from year to year or perhaps the responses to your habitat management practices. At a very minimum, conducting the survey will get you outside at sunrise when the day is at its best.

This article was written by Blake Hendon and originally appeared in Texas Parks and Wildlife Department “The Cedar Post” Volume 3, Issue 1, April 2013.

Quail need more than just space to survive. With bobwhite quail, it all boils down to habitat. Cover is an essential part of quail habitat. Lack of cover and proper dispersion of food and water are limiting factors over much of the species distribution in Texas. Quality quail habitat usually consists of scattered pockets of cover, ranging from less than 1 acre up to about 10 acres. Bobwhite quail use structural cover in many ways, and all are important to sustaining healthy, hunt-able quail populations.

Quail are an edge-dependent species. They can move quickly between nesting, watering, and feeding habitats, and escape cover, such that changing from one activity to another constitutes a quick walk or flight of a few seconds duration. Dispersion of essential cover and habitat types need to be within a quarter of a mile of each other. The greater the amount of interspersion of cover and habitat type combinations the better the habitat is for quail. Ideally, habitat components for quail are made up of 1/4 grassland, ½ cropland, 1/8 shrub cover, and 1/8 woodland.

Quail Hiding and Escape Habitat

Quail seek hiding and escape cover when flushed. If flushed from hiding cover, birds tend to fly farther and run farther before ducking into other vegetative cover. Hiding cover varies greatly, from grassy and herbaceous plants to woody species and man-made structures. Heavy quail hunting pressure tends to force quail to seek denser cover for hiding.

Roosting Habitat

Bobwhite quail roost in small groups on the ground among small shrubs, forbs, grasses, weedy glades, reverting fields, and other suitable cover. Roosting habitat free of overhead cover allows birds to fly when threatened by predators.

Resting or Loafing Cover for Quail

Daytime resting or loafing cover provides overhead and lateral protection, has a central vegetation-free area, and offers many avenues of escape. Bobwhite require some type of shrubby or woody cover for loafing, resting and protection from winter snow and winds. Such areas provide a safe resting sites between morning and evening feeding periods. They will use tall grasses and weed patches but prefer woody plants. Many of these sites are known as “covey headquarters” where a covy centers its daily activities. Mesquite, skunkbush, sumac, shinnery oak, and sandsage provided good loafing cover. Brush piles, abandoned buildings, corrals, and old farm equipment may substitute for natural cover.

A covey may have several headquarters within its home range that it uses from time to time depending upon the weather and available food. It’s typically located near good feeding areas or even food plots for quail. Loafing and headquarters sites may be as small as 100 square feet but ideally are at least 400 square feet or more. Larger, denser sites are required for protection during extremely cold winter weather. No less than 5% nor more than 25% of a covey home range should be in woody cover that is 3 to 6 feet tall. Covey headquarters and loafing sites are easily made by protecting existing brushy thickets from fire or grazing, felling a tree covered with grape vines or planting small thickets to low growing shrubby species such as shinnery oak, wildplum, or sumac.

Quail Nesting Cover Habitat

Nesting cover likely is the most important habitat component for quail, because birds are most vulnerable to predation during this time. Birds construct their nest on the ground, typically in the protection of a clump of grass or shrug that they can walk to and yet provides some overhead protection. The nest bowl is made from dry vegetation from the previous year’s growth. About 80% of quail nests are found within 20 to 25 feet of an edge where habitat types change and which serves as a travel lane for the birds. Most nests are built in a grass clump from 6″ to 18″ tall.

Native prairie grasses with their clump-type growth form are ideal nest cover. Prairie grass sites with a clump density of no more than one 12 inch diameter clump per 4 square feet are the best. This allows for sufficient nesting clumps (about 10,000 per acre) and is thin enough to allow the birds to walk through the cover. Even much thinner nesting cover allows for plenty of nesting clumps and easier travel. In Texas, about 250 nesting clumps per acre is about minimum. Nesting success decreases in absence of good nesting cover.

Quail Brood Cover Habitat

The greatest mortality of quail occurs in the first four weeks after hatch. This is a critical period which often determines whether the fall population will be a bumper crop or less than desired. Quail chicks have only a few requirements but these are a must! Chicks need freedom of movement at ground level, overhead concealment and a diverse assortment of green plants or plant parts within pecking height – which for a baby quail is only about two inches. The ground cover must be very open with only 30 to 50 percent vegetative coverage. This means that as much as 70 percent can be bare ground.

The low-growing greens attract insects such as beetles, grasshoppers, leafhoppers, ants and other invertebrates which compose almost the entire diet of quail up to three weeks of age. Recently burned prairie units are ideal as are old field sites, weedy strips, legume plantings and small grain and legume mixes. Brood cover must be less than 100 yards away from midday loafing cover that is typically woody cover thickets, or stands of taller dense weeds.

Water for Quail

Water is a critical element of quality bobwhite quail habitat. Supplemental water or access to water year-round can increase survival of young. Although quail generally obtain enough water from their environment (i.e., dew, succulent vegetation, insects), quail frequently concentrate around a source of free water, which may be a critical factor for survival of immature birds during drought. Birds usually do not travel over 1 km (0.6 mi) for water.

Quail Habitat Summary

Grass habitat is usually the limiting factor for bobwhite quail because it is often mowed or converted to cropland. Hedgerows are also very important, providing sources of food and cover. Grasslands are used mainly for nesting cover and brooding, cropland for feeding and dusting, and brushy areas, thickets and woodlands for escape cover, loafing and winter protection. Survival is reduced in areas that lack heavy cover. Both food and cover must be stable or continuously renewed for quail during the entire year.

Ask any “old timer” and they will tell you that Texas quail hunting was fairly good 50 or 60 years ago all across the state. That’s far from the case today. But it has been the loss of quail habitat, not quail hunting, that has hit quail numbers the hardest. They need good habitat—the right kinds of plants—to survive. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) hopes to give habitat and their numbers a boost.

TPWD is taking a “boots on the ground” approach to bobwhite quail management in Texas as part of a strategic action plan that involves hunters, landowners and science. The plan focuses on habitat management and does not include changes in harvest regulations. Because regulations will not compensate for losses in quail habitat, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is making no changes to the quail hunting season for 2012-13. The season will open Oct. 27 and close Feb. 24, 2013 with a daily bag limit of 15, possession limit of 45.

“Hunting is a tool to regulate harvest of quail, but not a tool that could impact quail recovery at a landscape level,” said Robert Perez, TPWD Upland Game Bird Program Leader. “Hunting didn’t create this problem.” The long term trend in declining bobwhite populations have also impacted more than two dozen other grassland bird species that are not hunted. Biologists recognize the primary cause for these declines is loss of usable habitat. Habitat management focused on restoration will be the prescribed cure for Texas’ quail population.

During the next four years, TPWD will implement and monitor quail management strategies at three “focus area” sites in different parts of the state. The model for the project was developed in cooperation with the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative and the Oaks and Prairies Joint Venture and is a component of TPWD Wildlife Division’s Upland Game Bird Strategic Plan.

“These efforts will allow us to test the hypotheses that given enough usable habitat, we can sustain viable populations of quail over boom and bust cycles,” Perez said. “Historically, our wildlife biologists have worked with landowners to develop management plans for quail, but we’ve never attempted to quantify those efforts at a larger scale.”

During the upcoming hunting season, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologists will also be looking to hunters to help collect and report data that can be used to more accurately monitor quail hunting and harvest. Currently, TPWD relies on information gathered through its annual Small Game Harvest Survey of hunters to determine bobwhite quail harvest, which does not include daily harvest by county.

By issuing a harvest scorecard to a random group of quail hunters prior to the season, and using methodology similar to that developed for tracking migratory game bird harvest, TPWD hopes to get a more accurate accounting of wild bobwhite harvest. The future of Texas quail hunting is hinged to good habitat for these upland game birds. The loss of native clump grasses have hurt quail numbers the most, but improved pastures, fire ants and increased development have not helped either.

The plight of the bobwhite quail has been well documented. It seems the species can not get out of the way of its own demise. Everything is stacked against it. Habitat is disappearing and rainfall is sparse. The recent droughts have amplified the decline of quail in the state, even in the traditional strongholds. Quail experts have admitted they don’t exactly know what the limiting factors may be. Now, even Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has said that quail hunting itself is not impacting the population. Will quail populations and hunting persist in Texas?

From the pen of Carter P. Smith
Executive Director of Texas Parks & Wildlife Department

“For most of us, the quail hunting season started and ended with more of a whimper than a bang this year. Save and except for a few pockets of sandy country in deep South Texas, much of the state’s bobwhite quail range was bereft of the very thing hunters and their dogs desired — quail. For all who cherish the sound of a rooster’s penetrating “bob-white” cry on a crisp winter morning and the sight of an exploding covey rise over a good point, that’s a real shame.

Another casualty of the now famous, or infamous, dry spell of 2011, statewide bobwhite quail populations are estimated by TPWD biologists to be as low as they have been in decades. Regrettably, it is another step backward for a prized game bird that has seen its population decline steadily across its range from New Jersey to the southern Great Plains. The bird’s predicament has been the subject of considerable discussion — and debate, I might add — in chat rooms, emails and conference rooms and at coffee shops and kitchen tables from Pampa to Albany to Coleman to Kingsville.

Quail hunters are anything but shy and retiring when it comes to their favorite game bird, and this year has been no exception. That’s a good thing, because let me assure you, complacency is not an option. So, how did we get to where we are today?

It is important to note that Texas is situated at the western terminus of the bird’s range. Quail populations, like other species of fish and wildlife, are more susceptible to the annual boom and bust cycles of nature when they’re at the margins. In any one year, assuming suitable habitat exists in sufficient quality and quantity, most population variability in bobwhite populations can be explained by the timing and amount of rainfall. This axiom holds true for much of the state, except for the eastern portion, where rainfall is not a limiting factor but suitable available habitat is.

That’s not to say that suitable habitat is not a limiting factor elsewhere in Texas. The pernicious effects of widespread quail habitat fragmentation, proliferation of exotic and invasive grasses and conversion of native habitat to improved pasture are all taking their toll.

And, as hard as it is to imagine in a state revered for its wide-open spaces and vast places, scale may be a problem as well. Researchers at the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute have suggested that in order to maintain sustainable populations of bobwhite quail, we may need to maintain large blocks of contiguous habitat to the tune of hundreds of thousands of acres. Such is certainly true of other grassland bird species, including upland game birds like the lesser prairie-chicken, which is fighting an uphill battle to hang on in the wake of significant long-term habitat changes across its range.

Some quail enthusiasts and researchers, while acknowledging the unavoidable weather and quail habitat parts of the quail equation, have suggested that there may be other insidious forces to blame. Exploding feral hog populations or a cryptic disease or endo-parasite may also be negatively affecting quail populations. Or, perhaps just as likely, it may be a combination of “all of the above.”

If you are worried about the effects of quail hunting, let me quickly take that off your worry list. There are simply far too few quail hunters to make an impact at a statewide, population-level scale.

While hunters are not the cause of this decline, they absolutely will be a big part of the solution. Thanks to their investments in the upland game bird stamp, which funds the important work of wildlife biologists across the state, as well as their support of groups like the Quail Coalition and the efforts of research institutions like the Kleberg institute, the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch and Quail-Tech, hunters will help us get to the bottom of this most vexing of wildlife concerns.

I am grateful that hunters and anglers care so passionately for our wild things and wild places. We need them now more than ever.”

There is nothing more fun than quail hunting in Texas with the use of some good bird dogs. Quail populations can be boom or bust depending on the year, but the long-term average has been on the decline. Texas still offers good quail hunting, but the birds are not found in as many places as they used to. Of the two remaining stronghold regions for quail in Texas, the Rolling Plains has not had a quality quail hunting season during the past three years.

But the quail up North are not alone. South Texas has not had a quality quail hunting season during two of the past three years. For South Texas, it’s been reported that juvenile:adult age ratios were lower than 1:1 during those years. The problem, as experts see it, is that an extreme and persistent La Niña oscillation in the Pacific Ocean has been the driver behind historic drought and excess heat during much of this period.

The La Niña oscillation broke down a bit in late 2009, and we received some well-deserved rain in 2010. In South Texas, bobwhite quail responded quite well to this influx of rainfall, and the 2010-2011 quail hunting season was very good. Quail researchers recorded juvenile:adult age ratios as high as 5:1 in many areas. That is the kind of reproduction it takes to sustain quail and provide quality hunting opportunities.

Bobwhite and scaled quail in the Rolling Plains also responded to the 2010 rainfall pulse; quail surveys found that their numbers increased by 20% from 2009 based on Texas Parks and Wildlife Department roadside count data. However, quail numbers in 2009 were historically low and even with this increase, the 2010-2011 quail season in the Rolling Plains was lousy and quail hunters were extremely disappointed.

Hunters were left scratching their heads as to why the 2010-2011 quail season in the Rolling Plains was so terrible, when in fact it was simply unrealistic to expect that quail numbers could triple or quadruple in one year.

Since that time, La Niña—has come roaring back, delivering even more drought and heat. The result was virtually no quail production in either the Rolling Plains or South Texas during the 2011 nesting season.
The result of such extended drought and excess heat is that under such conditions, quail production essentially goes to zero no matter how much good quail habitat and usable space is available. In fact, researchers have 10 years of management data that shows more than 90% of the variation in annual production of bobwhites in South Texas is explained by cumulative rainfall (habitat quality) from April through August.

In habitats such as those found in South Texas, adequate rainfall is the key driver of quail populations, so long as ample habitat and usable space for quail is kept on the landscape. The current plight of quails in Texas has caused many people, including those who wield great influence over public opinion, to call for cutting back quail seasons in Texas by either shortening the season, reducing the bag limits, or both.

While these opinions are well intentioned, substantial research on quail has found that shortening the season or reducing bag limits will do nothing to solve the plight of quails in Texas. It is impossible to repair quail populations with regulations. It has been tried numerous times. It has failed every time it has been tried. The quail hunting in Texas has suffered due to drought conditions. Even quail populations found in good habitat have had pitiful production. Let’s hope it rains.