wheat

M

mustistuff

Banned
as a popular topic, wheat is where it's at. we have kinda gone over why pheasants do not seems to use wheat fields without significant weed content, some comments were obvious but I feel much was not touched. anyway today the question is why when I do hunt wheat which is quite a lot and have been doing it for many years, I almost never see old nest, egg shells or un-hatched eggs. is pheasants nesting in wheat over blown, I know sometimes farmers see the chicks running ahead of their combine and many it seems don't run fast enough, however, that doesn't mean the chicks were hatched there but were led there to catch bugs etc. surely some places if there are pheasants to be had, cover is so poor that they have to use the wheat for nesting. anyway, got any ideas uses guy's, wuz up??

cheers
 
I think it depends on what cover is available. If you are in area where wheat is the best and most prominant cover it is very important. I hunt a large farm in SD and the wheat is where the birds primarily nest and the wheat crop has a large impact on bird nest success and survival.:thumbsup:
 
In the days of summer fallowing of wheat fields I used to see all kinds of nests during the season. I think the weedless, continuous wheat cropping makes them undesirable for roosting and nesting. Also, when some wheat is harvested the chaff is dumped in windrows and then baled. In such cases the cutting is closer to the ground.
 
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BritChaser said:
In the days of summer fallowing of wheat fields I used to see all kinds of nests during the season. I think the weedless, continuous wheat cropping makes them undesirable for roosting and nesting. Also, when some wheat is harvested the chaff is dumped in windrows and then baled. In such cases the cutting is closer to the ground.
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Bulls eye! It all changed when the dryland wheat farming became passe. We don't need it anymore, because of farming advances and it will always rain! Those strips of fallow ground, weeds, bugs, were the cat's meow. Now what pheasants get born in the ditches, the corners of irrigation fields, and narrow crop borders use the emerging wheat as a brooding zone, but not nesting cover. I think the high density corn plantings achieve the same result.
 
I've seen some fields where stripper type combines are being used. This will be of some use for the birds if not Fall tilled. Heavy snows in the North will still make these fields useless for Wintering. Certainly much better then 6 inch stubble.
 
Musti, I think that there are several good answers to your question. Undoubtedly, different ones might be correct in different fields. First, it's a long time between nesting and bird season. Everything likes to eat eggs and a nest that has been used, either successfully or not, will often be torn apart by predators, rodents, machinery, and the elements in the months after the birds have left. Second, the needle in the haystack analogy might fit here. Finding what few nests might be in a field while watching dogs, other hunters, and birds along the way is a stretch. Yes, I've seen some and take note of roosts and whatever else I can, but I've also gone back and thoroughly looked for a blaze orange hat my son lost several weekends in a row with no success only to have the hunting buddy come back with it a month later. Further, today's wheat isn't what it once was. Shorter varieties are less attractive, weedless is better as a fish hook, and cutting the stubble to less than 15 inches results in a significant reduction in bird use post-harvest. Yeah, yeah, I got off on another sermon with that last one:) Finally, pheasant nests are quite dissimilar to the oriole. They are not elaborate and the residue from some of them would be easy to miss. Also, since the eggs aren't chicken egg white, they don't show up as well as you might think. My 2 cents!
 
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