I'm sure you seen aplenty, some of it while in mushroom mode. Unfortunately, you didn't see our ground, and I'm not sure you even live in the state, or experienced the blizzard.
This was a once-in-a-decade type of storm. It lasted four days. Winds up to fifty miles per hour. Over two feet of snow in many spots. The cattail-choked creek that runs through our ground harbors the majority of our birds. It's about ten feet lower than the adjacent fields. After the blizzard, it was impossible to see where the creek was, as it was completely buried. Not powder, but drifts with a hard crust. The several feet of snow over the top of the cattails remained there for over a month. Few if any open spots for birds to get in or out. Any birds that tried to ride the storm out under that canopy were vulnerable to the variety of predators slinking around down there with them, particularly after not feeding for four or more days and being weak as hell. We found dead birds laying near the snowed-in shelterbelts, and before you start with the "them was planted burds!" stuff, understand that we don't release any. Obviously, some survived the blizzard, hopefully many, but I'm a little doubtful they'd then have had enough juice left to fly twenty miles to locate better cover. Particularly when it was unlikely, given the scope of the storm, that things were much better elsewhere. The surrounding area consists of harvested or plowed fields buried in snow, and a few shelterbelts that were also snowed-in. Those birds didn't have many places to go, and their opportunities to feed were few and far between. Guess what a "hole" bunch of them did? Starts with d.
One of the friends I referred to farms 5500 acres, around thirty miles north of us. He, too, found dead birds after the storm, and watched hawks and eagles taking out survivors who were out on the snow-covered fields searching for food. He reports that he isn't seeing many birds this spring while out planting. But then again, he's only been farming there for sixty years and may not be familiar with the morel of the story.
Also, I'm aware that hens rarely have more than one brood, unless the first nest is destroyed early on. I was sarcastic when I said we'd need multiple hatches in order to restore our numbers to anywhere near last year's. I see now that I should have explained that in order to avoid causing you distress.
We lost a lot of pheasants in our area. I'm confident that plenty made it through. Hopefully more than it appears at this point, but it's hard to believe that our numbers next fall won't be impacted by the storm.
