Hey Ruttcrazed
Hey Ruttcrazed, maybe I can help with your ID. Quail are a grassland/shrubland bird. The habitat has to contain a combination of native grass, woody cover, and forbs (weeds). Crop fields can substitute for the forbs to some extent. One condition you'll need to evaluate is the density. Quail are sight feeders and significant thatch degrades the habitat, possibly to the point of it being unusable. So too, the lack of woody cover can also make an otherwise useable habitat uninhabitable. Most CRP is too thick to hold significant quail though you may find them using the edges adjoining more open habitat types. If I could get pictures to post here I would start a quail habitat picture thread.............
Wildcat, I am away from my phone book, but I know that there has recently been a fairly quick turnover of managers at Hillsdale. I've never been there, but I know that it is probably in a 40-50 inch rainfall belt. That means that plant succession is fairly quick and keeping a habitat in the lower successional stage necessary to support significant quail populations would take some serious effort. Changing personnel can exacerbate that getting done. There's always about a 2 year establishment time for a new manager to really get the ball rolling. No excuses, just some of the problems we face. In general, we often find ourselves doing too much for too many different factions. That leads us to not being able to keep up with what needs done every day/year. My own area once had 4-5 full-time employees, now it's just me. If I had 3 other FTE's, man what I could do! It would take a bigger budget though......and where would that come from?
