Pictures of your habitat, projects, food plots, etc.

C

cyclonenation10

Well-known member
Would like to have a thread for people to share pictures of their habitat, whether established or in the process of. Shelter belts, food plots, new seedings, renovations, tree cuttings, whatever it is. If no pictures to share, what are projects you have planned before next fall?

For me, it's been cutting and treating the seemingly endless amount of soft maples and dead ash trees around our fencelines and stuff. Hoping to spray some of our nuisance canary grass in spots this spring and try and establish some switch grass in those areas as well.
 
Alright. So, the habitat project on this property started in 2018 with a six row tree belt running north and south. As I noted, the willows and plums failed to grow. It's very sandy soil. So, I'm going to do the whole thing in Eastern Red Cedar. I doubt I'll get them all planted this spring, but if I can get a couple hundred in each year, I'll have it taken care of in a few years. The initial cedars are doing well, some over 6'. The food plot alternates year to year on the east or west side, running parallel with the main tree belt. I much prefer it on the west side as it basically runs into the cattails and is super easy for the pheasants to access, but I get it.

Two years ago, I started the project down by the slough, but the conservation district failed to put in matting and I lost those trees. Planted again last year and they once again forgot to put in matting. However, the trees I planted grew like weeds and will be okay. I'll finish off the one row on the northwest side and plant all three on the southeast side this spring. I made sure they put the matting in. Not gonna play that game again.

My boss has a small planter that I'm hoping to use to put in some small sorghum patches between the trees near the slough and the slough itself. It won't be big, but every little bit helps. What I'd love to do is plant kochia and giant ragweed, but I don't think the farmer would appreciate me planting weeds, lol.

Anyway, that's the plan. Last year, my wife, daughter and niece went out and we put in 150 trees in less than two hours. It's crazy how fast planting goes with a few extra hands and a system. Hoping to do the same this spring!!

Habitat Project Overview.jpg
 
Golden Hour said:
Alright. So, the habitat project on this property started in 2018 with a six row tree belt running north and south. As I noted, the willows and plums failed to grow. It's very sandy soil. So, I'm going to do the whole thing in Eastern Red Cedar. I doubt I'll get them all planted this spring, but if I can get a couple hundred in each year, I'll have it taken care of in a few years. The initial cedars are doing well, some over 6'. The food plot alternates year to year on the east or west side, running parallel with the main tree belt. I much prefer it on the west side as it basically runs into the cattails and is super easy for the pheasants to access, but I get it.

Two years ago, I started the project down by the slough, but the conservation district failed to put in matting and I lost those trees. Planted again last year and they once again forgot to put in matting. However, the trees I planted grew like weeds and will be okay. I'll finish off the one row on the northwest side and plant all three on the southeast side this spring. I made sure they put the matting in. Not gonna play that game again.

My boss has a small planter that I'm hoping to use to put in some small sorghum patches between the trees near the slough and the slough itself. It won't be big, but every little bit helps. What I'd love to do is plant kochia and giant ragweed, but I don't think the farmer would appreciate me planting weeds, lol.

Anyway, that's the plan. Last year, my wife, daughter and niece went out and we put in 150 trees in less than two hours. It's crazy how fast planting goes with a few extra hands and a system. Hoping to do the same this spring!!

View attachment 5191
Click to expand...
Have you tried nine bark as a shrubby plant? We had very good luck with those in our planting in pretty sandy soil.
 
Well, I had GH get me started, but mine is pretty rudimentary.

Below is what the farm looked like in about the fall of 2015. Most of the green area was filter strips except about 6 acres in the upper right corner. We had maybe 40 resident pheasants then. The following spring the the balance of the farm was put into CRP (CP-38). This program was tailored to pheasant recovery and had requirements for food plots, nesting cover and heavy winter cover. For me, this was a dream come true to create the habitat. The winding green lines are terraces.
1674748308107.png

Below is a more recent image of the farm (2020 or 2021). The yellow is food plots, the bulk is native grasses and forbs (nesting area), inside the almost blocked-in by food plots is a mono-block of 18 acres of switchgrass (heavy winter cover). Above the crude red line is a hedgerow of shrubs 4 rows (wild plum, arrow wood, aronia berry, gray dogwood and hazelnut). The blue line was a vague idea of the waterway, which we have filter strips on as we did prior to the crp. Beyond that in the upper right corner is not in a program and there we have rows of shrubs (2005-2007) which include nanny berry, cranberry, hazelnuts, june berry with some wild plums. For trees we have a row of eastern red cedar, a row of white oak (I know, perch trees, but a great deer food source, they just had acorns for the first time last fall) another row of eastern red cedars and 3 rows Austrian pines. In the upper right, way to the right, I started another windbreak (2017) made up of eastern red cedar and various pines and spruce trees. We don't hunt in the back corner (upper right), it is kind of their sanctuary now.

1674748460367.png
I took a video walking back out after I had my limit, this is the switch grass, only 4 feet tall or so this season with it being so dry. You can see a few birds in the air ahead of me. Recovery is a bit difficult in this cover, you really shouldn't try to pull off doubles.
Switch grass.jpg
Here are a couple pics of the hedgerow, It is coming along nicely. We mow short between the rows for now, should make easy moving for chicks.
shrubs 2.jpg
shrubs 1.jpg
And a late summer pic of a food plot
102.jpg
 
remy3424 said:
Well, I had GH get me started, but mine is pretty rudimentary.

Below is what the farm looked like in about the fall of 2015. Most of the green area was filter strips except about 6 acres in the upper right corner. We had maybe 40 resident pheasants then. The following spring the the balance of the farm was put into CRP (CP-38). This program was tailored to pheasant recovery and had requirements for food plots, nesting cover and heavy winter cover. For me, this was a dream come true to create the habitat. The winding green lines are terraces.
View attachment 5204

Below is a more recent image of the farm (2020 or 2021). The yellow is food plots, the bulk is native grasses and forbs (nesting area), inside the almost blocked-in by food plots is a mono-block of 18 acres of switchgrass (heavy winter cover). Above the crude red line is a hedgerow of shrubs 4 rows (wild plum, arrow wood, aronia berry, gray dogwood and hazelnut). The blue line was a vague idea of the waterway, which we have filter strips on as we did prior to the crp. Beyond that in the upper right corner is not in a program and there we have rows of shrubs (2005-2007) which include nanny berry, cranberry, hazelnuts, june berry with some wild plums. For trees we have a row of eastern red cedar, a row of white oak (I know, perch trees, but a great deer food source, they just had acorns for the first time last fall) another row of eastern red cedars and 3 rows Austrian pines. In the upper right, way to the right, I started another windbreak (2017) made up of eastern red cedar and various pines and spruce trees. We don't hunt in the back corner (upper right), it is kind of their sanctuary now.

View attachment 5205
I took a video walking back out after I had my limit, this is the switch grass, only 4 feet tall or so this season with it being so dry. You can see a few birds in the air ahead of me. Recovery is a bit difficult in this cover, you really shouldn't try to pull off doubles.
View attachment 5206
Here are a couple pics of the hedgerow, It is coming along nicely. We mow short between the rows for now, should make easy moving for chicks.
View attachment 5207
View attachment 5208
And a late summer pic of a food plot
View attachment 5209
Click to expand...
Great looking property! I’m sure you hold a plethora of birds with the layout.
If you had to do it again, would you make any changes?
Any pics of the nesting mix?
 
There were likely a couple hundred birds in that parcel during season. I think we shot around 70 on that farm alone this season, and there were tons left! If I could do anything different, I would have started planting trees earlier and many more conifers . I know many think the food plots are better planted in a large block, but I spread them out for a several reasons. One is so that the birds can get to food with minimal travel/effort. Another reason was as I placed those, they would not all get drifted in, in the event of a severe blizzard. The third reason is that that are good places to hunt and provides good hunting set-up as they are. Strangely enough, this past season, very few were shot from the food plots. I figured out a better way to hunt it this year, if we didn't get our limits it wasn't for the lack of opportunities!

Not sure I have any of the nesting cover pics, it is a mix of 10 grasses, including Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Indian Grass, Sideoats Grama, Switchgrass.... oh and here is something I would change, there is also Canada Wildrye and Virginia Wildrye, those have the "mean seeds", so I would try to get a mix without those in it. There were also 17 wildflowers to pull in the insects for the chicks. If we would have used a mix without the forbes, weed control would have been much easier, but I wanted the best habitat possible and went with the flowers and would do that again.
 
remy3424 said:
There were likely a couple hundred birds in that parcel during season. I think we shot around 70 on that farm alone this season, and there were tons left! If I could do anything different, I would have started planting trees earlier and many more conifers . I know many think the food plots are better planted in a large block, but I spread them out for a several reasons. One is so that the birds can get to food with minimal travel/effort. Another reason was as I placed those, they would not all get drifted in, in the event of a severe blizzard. The third reason is that that are good places to hunt and provides good hunting set-up as they are. Strangely enough, this past season, very few were shot from the food plots. I figured out a better way to hunt it this year, if we didn't get our limits it wasn't for the lack of opportunities!

Not sure I have any of the nesting cover pics, it is a mix of 10 grasses, including Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Indian Grass, Sideoats Grama, Switchgrass.... oh and here is something I would change, there is also Canada Wildrye and Virginia Wildrye, those have the "mean seeds", so I would try to get a mix without those in it. There were also 17 wildflowers to pull in the insects for the chicks. If we would have used a mix without the forbes, weed control would have been much easier, but I wanted the best habitat possible and went with the flowers and would do that again.
Click to expand...
Great land remy and also placement of habitat. Spreading out your food plots also help to spread out the birds too so they are not all congregated in one location. Travel distance to food is very important as you have mentioned less energy burned the better. Your property is fantastic!
 
remy3424 said:
There were likely a couple hundred birds in that parcel during season. I think we shot around 70 on that farm alone this season, and there were tons left! If I could do anything different, I would have started planting trees earlier and many more conifers . I know many think the food plots are better planted in a large block, but I spread them out for a several reasons. One is so that the birds can get to food with minimal travel/effort. Another reason was as I placed those, they would not all get drifted in, in the event of a severe blizzard. The third reason is that that are good places to hunt and provides good hunting set-up as they are. Strangely enough, this past season, very few were shot from the food plots. I figured out a better way to hunt it this year, if we didn't get our limits it wasn't for the lack of opportunities!

Not sure I have any of the nesting cover pics, it is a mix of 10 grasses, including Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Indian Grass, Sideoats Grama, Switchgrass.... oh and here is something I would change, there is also Canada Wildrye and Virginia Wildrye, those have the "mean seeds", so I would try to get a mix without those in it. There were also 17 wildflowers to pull in the insects for the chicks. If we would have used a mix without the forbes, weed control would have been much easier, but I wanted the best habitat possible and went with the flowers and would do that again.
Click to expand...
Wow, the increase in the bird numbers is amazing to hear with all the habitat improvement. Kudos on that. I wish we were neighbors! Hopefully, I can have a similar success story - to some degree - with my property.

How has managing the CRP been overall? You mention weed control is a bit harder with the grass/forbs mix. Just wondering if you're seeing your preferable grass/forbs mix composition change over time in your mixes or if your management (fire, mowing) is keeping it where you want it? You have a couple different CRP mixes in your property; do you get some mixes overtaking areas where they are not originally planted?
 
I have spent hundreds of hours with pump-up sprayers with Milestone chasing Canadian Thistles (and a few musk, bull and milk thistles). I usually have a sprayer of 2,4-D also as there are a few weeds I know the Milestone will not kill. If we had left the flowers out (Milestone or 2,4-D will kill them), we could do broad spraying for the thistles. The native grasses don't seem to move, but the brome grass moves rapidly from existing waterways, fence lines and terraces. In places, I can see it has pushed 40 yards into the native grasses, Some say burning brome, if you burn late, will set it back, I just can't see that it slows it at all. Our 15-year contract only called for 1 mid-contract burn. We did this over 3 years. It took a lot more work to make firebreaks and control the fire, but I just couldn't loose all the early nesting cover and have to wait for the new grass to grow enough to nest under, it wasn't an option....and the USDA was good with it. We will request doing the 3-year burn again in a couple years. There are areas where you can see that one of the grasses have thrived and are the main plant, but most of the farm continues to have a great mix of plant species. At the end of the contract, the brome will likely be making a negative change in things I am guessing. The block of switch grass really only has less than 200 yards of fence line for the brome to come in from, the rest of the perimeter is protected by the food plots that are tilled & replanted annually. The food plots should be somewhat easy, but they need tillage, fertilizing and weed control along with planting. We have switched to grain sorghum due to ground squirrels moved in and would dig-up and eat the planted kernels of corn as soon as they sprouted. There is work, but I don't might this type of work, knowing what the results bring. In the back corner I am always transplanting more conifers or some fruit trees to enhance that area.
 
remy3424 said:
There were likely a couple hundred birds in that parcel during season. I think we shot around 70 on that farm alone this season, and there were tons left! If I could do anything different, I would have started planting trees earlier and many more conifers . I know many think the food plots are better planted in a large block, but I spread them out for a several reasons. One is so that the birds can get to food with minimal travel/effort. Another reason was as I placed those, they would not all get drifted in, in the event of a severe blizzard. The third reason is that that are good places to hunt and provides good hunting set-up as they are. Strangely enough, this past season, very few were shot from the food plots. I figured out a better way to hunt it this year, if we didn't get our limits it wasn't for the lack of opportunities!

Not sure I have any of the nesting cover pics, it is a mix of 10 grasses, including Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Indian Grass, Sideoats Grama, Switchgrass.... oh and here is something I would change, there is also Canada Wildrye and Virginia Wildrye, those have the "mean seeds", so I would try to get a mix without those in it. There were also 17 wildflowers to pull in the insects for the chicks. If we would have used a mix without the forbes, weed control would have been much easier, but I wanted the best habitat possible and went with the flowers and would do that again.
Click to expand...
That just looks fantastic, Remy. How many acres total?
So am I right that the CRP grass has been in about 6-7 years? I'm guessing the CWR/VWR took hold quickly. If you could estimate, how much reduction/die-off have you seen in CWR/VWR since then? 20%? 50%? More?
 
160 total acres. The nesting area with the native grass mix is 137 acres of the parcel. There are places there is a bunch of it, but I do think in most of the areas, there is not much left. I don't think it likes to be crowded. It was drilled-in the spring of 2016, so it is almost 7 years in now. I really hope in 8 years there is a program it can go back into...it is a 15 year contract.
 
I'm an amateur pheasantologist, but not a botanist by any stretch. So consider this situation. You plant a seed mix whose intent is for Canada wild rye to be dominant initially. Then the CWR dies off considerably, as intended, over the next several years, as other plants take hold. Could a burn reignite the CWR for another cycle? (pun intended)
 
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Yes, I think that is entirely possible, if it gets some exposed ground...after a burn. Seems the heat from a burn wakes up a lot of dormant seeds.
 
Great looking habitat! Shows what can be accomplished.

This quarter is where most of my efforts are focused:
1674848195435.png

Unfortunately, much of my planned work this year is "defensive". Still working on removing unwanted trees, mostly locust and cedar from the finger draw running southeast from the north side. Woody cover in Kansas is not all that important for pheasants; snowfalls in my part of the state are infrequent, often small, and gone quickly. Area 1 and Area 2 were seeded to a native grass and forb mix last spring, right before the drought set in. Obviously there wasn't much growth last year, but I'm going to give it at least one more year before starting over. On the west edge of area 2 I planted about 40 shrubs, fragrant sumac and chokecherry. As I said, not needed for the pheasants, but very necessary for the quail. 95% leafed out, but then the drought set in. I found a local kid to water, but too late to save most. If 20% leaf out this year, I'll be surprised. I'm also planning to try a dormant seeding of native grass on a teardrop-shaped spot on the NW corner. It was tilled last spring and never grew much last summer.

Then there's this pasture:
1674848678024.png

Once it warms up a little bit and we get a little moisture, I need to check it for cheat grass. Depending on what I see, I may have it grazed heavily before the native grasses come out of dormancy. It also has a handful of cedars that need removed.

Just south of this pasture is this odd little spot:
1674848876327.png
While it looks like an abandoned farmstead, I haven't seen the remnants of a house or any other structure. Regardless, it would take a month of weekends with a chainsaw to clear it enough, but if everything else goes well I might start. Unfortunately there's a lot of locust in it. There's cedar too, but that's easy.
 
matto said:
Great looking habitat! Shows what can be accomplished.

This quarter is where most of my efforts are focused:
View attachment 5214

Unfortunately, much of my planned work this year is "defensive". Still working on removing unwanted trees, mostly locust and cedar from the finger draw running southeast from the north side. Woody cover in Kansas is not all that important for pheasants; snowfalls in my part of the state are infrequent, often small, and gone quickly. Area 1 and Area 2 were seeded to a native grass and forb mix last spring, right before the drought set in. Obviously there wasn't much growth last year, but I'm going to give it at least one more year before starting over. On the west edge of area 2 I planted about 40 shrubs, fragrant sumac and chokecherry. As I said, not needed for the pheasants, but very necessary for the quail. 95% leafed out, but then the drought set in. I found a local kid to water, but too late to save most. If 20% leaf out this year, I'll be surprised. I'm also planning to try a dormant seeding of native grass on a teardrop-shaped spot on the NW corner. It was tilled last spring and never grew much last summer.

Then there's this pasture:
View attachment 5215

Once it warms up a little bit and we get a little moisture, I need to check it for cheat grass. Depending on what I see, I may have it grazed heavily before the native grasses come out of dormancy. It also has a handful of cedars that need removed.

Just south of this pasture is this odd little spot:
View attachment 5216
While it looks like an abandoned farmstead, I haven't seen the remnants of a house or any other structure. Regardless, it would take a month of weekends with a chainsaw to clear it enough, but if everything else goes well I might start. Unfortunately there's a lot of locust in it. There's cedar too, but that's easy.
Click to expand...
I would think someone would want to cut the locust just for the firewood or posts.
 
remy3424 said:
Yes, I think that is entirely possible, if it gets some exposed ground...after a burn. Seems the heat from a burn wakes up a lot of dormant seeds.
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Thing you have to be concerned about with the seed bank, dormant seeds laying on the ground, is fire residence time and intensity. You can have a low intensity fire, determined by flame height usually, and long residence time, how fast fire moves, these types of fires can consume most if not all the seed bank, if that happens site can be taken over by wind borne seeds. Also the timing of the burn will help control brome and other cool season grasses. But im sure this is nothing new to you and the NRC staff would know this too. Fire is a great tool to manage our resources from grasses to trees but needs to be applied properly.

In nebraska after a prairie burn we would set up a coyote golf course on my friends parcel.

What you guys are doing for habitat management is outstanding, my goal when i was a young student was to own land in bird country and do what you guys are doing.....best i have been able to do is work for state agencies and mange those landscapes either for private folks or state ownership. Keep up the great work!
 
Here is my family farm ground that my brothers and I plan to manage for wildlife.

The first is this 80 acres. Currently it has 25 acres of WRP ground and the rest is in crop production. The WRP holds a population of around 20-30 pheasants a year. We’d like to put the other 55 acres into CRP and try to build that pheasant population up. The majority of the field edge’s already have a good stand of plum thickets so we have some woody cover.

274C774D-1339-4821-8D12-EC092BA89DA7.jpeg

The next piece is 40 acres that has a small portion of CRP on it. We manage this piece more for deer hunting but it is close enough to the other property that the birds can bounce back and forth between the two. The CRP is in poor condition from brome taking it over and needs some kind of rehab. It also has lots of thickets along the edges as well as in the old waterways going through it. When my dad farmed this piece he planted milo in the larger field and it was a small quail mecca. It does still hold quail but not as many as it used to.

6BC3537D-95A5-430B-8A93-A805237573F0.jpeg

The next pic is the distance between the two fields

DB21B8B1-556E-4540-8B7D-E0D73BF403FE.jpeg
 
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