Winter and Bird Survival

Released birds are just a numbers game, as long as they are disease free and relatively healthy. Like anything else in life it is a giant bell curve, some at the upper end are going to survive no matter what happens in the environment. Some at the lower end wouldn't survive if they were fed by hand daily. If the conditions are right with weather and predators the middle of the curve will do okay. As someone mentioned, all pheasants in the US started from released birds. Heck we even have a viable population of pheasants in Homer descended from escapees and they made it under the watchful eyes of hundreds of Bald eagles.
 
Just thinking if just 10 hens out of 50 or 60 released survive and they nest. Then they have 2 or 3 hen chicks that make it to the following year out of each nest. This could end up being 30 to 40 hens nesting the following year. But maybe this is too optimistic.
 
Seems the birds are starting to spread out from the large groups they were in this winter. I had two roosters fly from a slough to the road in front of me before running into the bushes yesterday. Was happy to see that both were birds we released last September. They had yellow bands on. So even if a few of the raised birds made it through the winter we had it is encouraging. Our local Pro Pheasants sells mature hens for $5. So lets say you purchase 40 and release them into good cover. It would only take a few of those to nest out to make it worth the effort in my opinion. $200 to increase bird numbers vs all the money we spend to hunt them isn't a bad deal.

In our part of NE SD we have had a nice slow warm up which helped us not flooding too bad. Looks like in the near future our temps will be above freezing through out the day so Farmers should be out doing field work in a couple of weeks. SDviking
 
heard a very encouraging report from one of my farmer buddies this morning...he had been out and about last evening and saw many, many birds...
 
Received a report from a fellow - Lyman County: pheasants apparently survived OK. He wasn't too definitive, but the report was positive.
 
28gauge said:
Big storm moving in per accuweather. Wendsday/Thursday.
Click to expand...
Arrghh Is it just me or have the powers that be decided that somewhere in my past I have something that I should be punished for. Finally mostly retired and can spend more time hunting and the birds can't get a break. Then North Dakota looks like to change the trespass laws. Thank goodness I haven't quit drinking.
 
Chicks start to hatch in late May, I believe...around June 8th or 10th is usually the peak of the hatch...hens aren't nesting yet, but fairly soon...April blizzards are fairly common...good news is there hasn't been snow on the ground in much of SD for a few weeks...the birds have eaten more easily...temps have been pretty nice...the big risk is the birds being caught in the open and suffocating, as they face into the wind and if it there is moisture and cold temps it freezes their nostrils shut...hopefully they feed near decent winter cover like trees or cattails...it is going to warm up fairly soon after, I am not too worried...in areas where the snow hadn't melted yet, and feed has been hard to find, maybe a bit different story...but the storm from a month ago may have already done the damage in those areas...
 
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