Bad News

bobeyerite

bobeyerite

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bobeyerite said:
http://www.uplandjournal.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard312a/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=2;t=47489

That link is some very bad news. Be ready for some Very Shocking pictures. The hunter that posted this lives in Dickinson. So I think this is close to there. But the whole State was hit pretty hard so the same could be happening where you are.---Bob.
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I'm guessing that these may be pen raised birds that were released and don't know how to deal with the weather or are too concentrated for the available cover.

LM
 
I have followed that post over at UJ. I have talked to Craig before and actually had an invite to come out and stay at his place and hunt last fall which fell through. He is a great guy and is very passionate about his bird hunting and doing what he can to help the birds out. I hunt Mott every year and they normally don't see that much snowfall on a typical year as apposed to further east. This year has been very hard on the birds indeed. The well above normal snowfall combined with Brutally cold weather in January and Feb has the birds very stressed. With decent spring nesting weather they can bounce back, but the bigger hurdle will be in the next year or two with a pile of CRP coming out. We get another Winter like this winter in a couple years and it could decimate them in a hurry.

Landman, those aren't pen raised birds. The problem has been that there is so much snowfall this year and all of the CRP was snowed in. In that part of NoDak there are few if any Wetlands with Cattails and such for Winter cover. Without other forms of cover they are forced to the shelter belts and tree groves in and around the farms. It's also impossible for the birds to scratch through the completely covered fields to get to any available waist grain. That many birds competing for little food available creates the "only the strong survive" scenario.
 
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Very good post Birdshooter. You beat me to it.---Bob
 
A 5 acre stand of good milo can carry a lot of birds over winter. I leave 20 acres on my place. Total plots number about 10 and are spread out over farms. When CRP gets snowed in they actually start roosting in the food plots (milo). Even when the plots seem to get snowed in the birds can create caverns underneath and still have access to food. Wind protection, thermal and food and also predator protection.

If you are bored and/or haven't seen this video yet it has some interesting footage of life in the SD blizzard. I got stcuk in my place for 3 days in March in 2007 and twoards the end of storm I took tractor out and drove around. birds were busting out of snow covered food plots all over.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3623450506039192462
 
birdshooter said:
I have followed that post over at UJ. I have talked to Craig before and actually had an invite to come out and stay at his place and hunt last fall which fell through. He is a great guy and is very passionate about his bird hunting and doing what he can to help the birds out. I hunt Mott every year and they normally don't see that much snowfall on a typical year as apposed to further east. This year has been very hard on the birds indeed. The well above normal snowfall combined with Brutally cold weather in January and Feb has the birds very stressed. With decent spring nesting weather they can bounce back, but the bigger hurdle will be in the next year or two with a pile of CRP coming out. We get another Winter like this winter in a couple years and it could decimate them in a hurry.

Landman, those aren't pen raised birds. The problem has been that there is so much snowfall this year and all of the CRP was snowed in. In that part of NoDak there are few if any Wetlands with Cattails and such for Winter cover. Without other forms of cover they are forced to the shelter belts and tree groves in and around the farms. It's also impossible for the birds to scratch through the completely covered fields to get to any available waist grain. That many birds competing for little food available creates the "only the strong survive" scenario.
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I stand behind my assessment that this looks like a situation where a hunting operation left a lot of released birds in the wild after the season ended. I've been around pheasants for more than 50 years and seen a lot of bad winters including the big one of 68/69 and have never witnessed anything like the pictures show. If they are indeed wild birds then the carrying capacity for that area was greatly exceeded. Since birds will only travel about 1.5 miles for cover and food then all of them must have been hatched and reared within about a six square mile area. It's hard to imagine that that many birds could have been reared without more cover available.

I guess a possible explaination could be that a very large parcel of pheasant habitat was destroyed in the region or was of poor quality to allow the snow to cover it completely and there wasn't any other habitat nearby to fall back on. If so, then that area is going to have far fewer pheasants in the future anyway.

LM
 
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They are carrying an over capacity in my mind. It is not uncommon to see a good size field with 1000 pheasants in it and yes they are all wild. It is fairly localized to a relatively small region, maybe 2 or 3 counties. the Western part of the state had a couple of Nasty blizzards that hit the area early in the Winter that iced and snowed everything in. The winter just never let up and with the brutally cold Jan and Feb it just made the problem worse. This region is normally very arid and does not get anywhere near the snowfall as the eastern 2/3rd's of the state. As I stated previously they lack the wetlands which are crucial habitat in the more snowy central and eastern portions of Nodak and when you get a winter such as this the CRP becomes socked in and hard crusted, pushing the birds to the only available winter cover left... Shelter belts in and around the farmsteads.

With that may birds congregated in such a small area the competition for food becomes intense. You literally have the "only the strong shall survive" scenario and a massive die off as a result. This winter was definitely been an exception to the rule. The other problem as I see it is the CRP has started to come out and will continue so for the next couple of years. The reason Phez have flourished in this area in the first place has been the abundance of quality CRP combined with normally mild winters and drier spring nesting conditions than further east.

These next couple years you are going to be seeing a big drop off indeed.
 
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birdshooter said:
They are carrying an over capacity in my mind. It is not uncommon to see a good size field with 1000 pheasants in it and yes they are all wild. It is fairly localized to a relatively small region, maybe 2 or 3 counties. the Western part of the state had a couple of Nasty blizzards that hit the area early in the Winter that iced and snowed everything in. The winter just never let up and with the brutally cold Jan and Feb it just made the problem worse. This region is normally very arid and does not get anywhere near the snowfall as the eastern 2/3rd's of the state. As I stated previously they lack the wetlands which are crucial habitat in the more snowy central and eastern portions of Nodak and when you get a winter such as this the CRP becomes socked in and hard crusted, pushing the birds to the only available winter cover left... Shelter belts in and around the farmsteads.

With that may birds congregated in such a small area the competition for food becomes intense. You literally have the "only the strong shall survive" scenario and a massive die off as a result. This winter was definitely been an exception to the rule. The other problem as I see it is the CRP has started to come out and will continue so for the next couple of years. The reason Phez have flourished in this area in the first place has been the abundance of quality CRP combined with normally mild winters and drier spring nesting conditions than further east.

These next couple years you are going to be seeing a big drop off indeed.
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Can you tell us the exact location where the pictures were taken? How are you so sure that the birds are wild? Are you sure there aren't any places within a couple of miles that may have released birds? Is the local farmer trying to feed the pheasants, which can cause more harm if the feeding area is too far away from cover?

I've been around awhile and seen a lot of winter conditions in pheasant country and I've never seen anything like what is shown in the pictures. I've seen dead pheasants in the snow before but never 25 dead hens under a single tree nor have I've ever seen a hundred wild birds in a cow lot bunched up like that. I could easily imagine pen raised birds doing that but not birds that have spent their entire lives in the wild.

I also have a hard time imagining that so many birds could be reared in a area so devoid of habitat. Usually even normal winters will keep the population in check if there isn't much habitat.

If they are indeed wild birds then we should send a wildlife biologist to the site to study the situation and report what happened to cause the high pheasant mortality. Maybe there are other factors involved such as a disease of some kind.

LM
 
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I've just spoken to my contact out in the Mott area and they are reporting almost the same things that is being depicted in that thread over at UJ. When the birds have turned to cannibalism and the live ones are feeding on the dead, you know things are very tough. I see a drastic change this fall, regardless of what the hatch will bring.
 
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Well I went for the tour last week and the sight is not good here in our part of the world either. At least in the photos there is some birds left. I am no longer seeing the groups and only seeing one here and one there. the most I see is 2. Not good. Hardly any tracks. The only thing they could have done is dispersed and moved a ways or something but I doubt it.
 
I just talked to a friend that lives near Dickinson ND. He said the cold snap the past few days is really killing birds in the eastern part of the state. That some of his western birds are dying also. They just cannot get out of the cold and are unable to dig deep enough to get food. The shelter belts are no help, for they are so snowed in they offer no protection. A very sad situation indeed.---Bob
 
Pheasant are canniballistic during the best of times. Especially the roosters during cold weather. One of the reasons 1 rooster to 8-10 hen is the best.

My friend in SW ND has kept me informed. He owns several thousand acres of good bird country, at least during normal Winters. He tells me the only pheasants to survive this Winter are in the Ranch groves being feed or eating with the cattle or on bales. No cover in the coulees and crp. The snow has drifted over all the cover except trees and brush.
But, has several hundred doing well around the building site. Where there is good cover and food available birds are doing well.
The land owners that charge for hunting, are feeding in sheltered areas. As are a lot of others. There will be pheasants. For sure, not like we saw the last couple years.
 
ND was hit with one real bad winter. In the western part of ND there is no real great winter cover except river bottom willows. Few cattail sloughs and no huge sloughs. Thus pheasants in SW ND can concentrate and then die if winter is too tough.

Without working ranches in SW ND, few if any pheasants would survive a real winter.

I looks like generally speaking HWY 12 in SD is the "kill line" above and pheasant populations are hit very hard by this winter. South of that line - winter, what winter? ND's "banana belt country" was not spared this year.
 
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