OUTDOOR CORNER: QUAIL HUNTING IMPROVES WITH UNDERSTANDING

Knowing what's important to quail can help numbers grow as well as aid hunting.

You are working your dogs through quail country. You have practiced your shooting so that you know how much to lead the birds when they are flushed. The equipment you have chosen is excellent from the briar resistant pants to the type of shells you purchased. And yet for all of this preparation and experience there is one skill for quail hunting that is lacking in many hunters, thinking like a quail.

No, I am not suggesting that quail are super intelligent and we need to emulate that. I am suggesting that to understand what a quail sees as important might lead to not only a better understanding of your quarry but a desire to see them flourish with what they need. To start, we will need to look at life from a quail's eye view of the world.

As a quail, life has four basic requirements and they are quite simple. A quail's first requirement is food. Small game birds, like Quail, want to eat things that are small enough to fit in their mouth but worth the effort to get them. Quail will not eat huge items such as acorns or hickory nuts. Instead small insects and seeds are important to their diet.

Ensuring that an area has plenty of tickseed trefoil (begger's lice), ragweed, red clover, lespedeza and other small seed plants will guarantee a feast for hungry quail. In the early spring, quail are hungry for protein. A great source is insects. If those insects are killed due to insecticides or loss of habitat, then quail will go hungry. It is not just the adults that need those spring bugs either. Hatchling bobwhites need lots of bugs to grow. Providing food for a quail can make a big difference in how many quail you see each hunt.

The second item quail need is shelter. A place to live, feed, breed, sleep and hide can be provided by letting an area grow up. A nicely mowed field or well-cleaned fence row may look good to us but to a quail this is equal to hundreds of miles of concrete. Letting part of a field grow up would help to solve this with one exception. Fescue, no matter how tall is not good for quail. As far as they are concerned, a field of fescue is a dense, tangled jungle of green, impenetrable to even that smallest of birds.

Native grasses such as big bluestem, indian grass and switch grass will be just what the hunter ordered. These grasses tend to bunch together and provide spaces that are a perfect fit for a nervous quail to take shelter in or even nest. If appropriate shelter does not exist then expect quail populations to be low.

Water is also important. Quail like a cool drink as much as the next critter. Yet they may not feel like traveling a mile and a half to find water, and if they do they certainly want that water to be clean. Providing a combination of water and shelter in close proximity can make more favorable conditions for survival. A close creek or small pond will work nicely.

Ensuring that the water source is free of excess sediment, pesticides and herbicides can be achieved by allowing the vegetation around a water source to grow up and serve as a filter strip. Fortunately, this also provides shelter and food!

The last requirement is space. Bobwhites all over the state need ample space to be a quail. A 4'x4' patch of land would obviously be insufficient for any self-respecting bird. For the same reason a thin two-foot wide strip of habitat irregardless of length is just not enough space. The larger the space provided, with food, water and shelter, the better things will be for their survival.

Quail populations have been a concern for hunters and the Department of Conservation for quite some time. The solution currently lies in the four requirements just mentioned. If you are a hunter who appreciates your prey, then take this opportunity to consider the skill of management.

Is your property suitable for quail? Does it provide all of the things a bobwhite would want and need? You can do something to ensure the summer songsters are available for hunting many years in the future just by giving them what they require.

For more information contact the Department of Conservation for a quail management booklet and a brochure on farming and wildlife at 573-290-5730. Seeing things from a quail's point of view can give you a skill to use before the hunt ever begins.

A.J. Hendershott is an education consultant with the Missouri Department of Conservation.