Quail Habitat & Forest Management

Herbert L. Stoddard once defined the management of bobwhite quail as "creating a surplus to be harvested by the gun." As with many of Stoddard's ideas on managing bobwhites, he was right then and now.  However, the challenge for today's forest managers who want to produce huntable quail populations is determining how quail management fits into modern silvicultural systems with current economic pressures.

Gone are the days (1890-1920) when crude agriculture mixed with native forest ground cover to produce quail in abundance. The patchwork of field and mature forest provided the right habitat to create remarkable quail populations. While quail are no longer an automatic byproduct of current land management, proper habitat management can still produce abundant quail for the hunter. Maintenance of high quail densities is expensive; however, moderate quail numbers are more economical. The goal of this paper is to provide the landowner with the necessary information to develop strategies for quail and timber management on their lands.

 BIOLOGY

Life History

Quail are relatively sedentary with small home ranges (10-50 acres) in areas of good habitat.  In poor habitat, home ranges greater than several hundred acres have been documented. If given the proper habitat, densities can reach greater than one quail per acre. As many as three quail per acre have been documented in ideal habitat conditions. Densities around two quail per acre have been maintained on shooting plantations in Florida since the 1920s, demonstrating that intensive habitat management still works today as it did in Mr. Stoddard's era.

Bobwhite quail populations suffer high annual mortality rates.  Research has documented annual mortality rates as high as 95 percent in heavily hunted populations; however, 65-80 percent mortality is more the norm.  To offset high annual mortality, quail have an impressive reproductive potential.  Quail breed from April to September and hatch nests from May until October.  Hens lay about one egg per day with a typical clutch consisting of 12-15 eggs.  Clutch size declines, however, as the season progresses.  By September clutch sizes from five to 10 eggs are common. Quail are vigorous renesters and under some circumstances may produce three or more nests in a single season. A hen may produce multiple clutches, sequentially, with the same or different mates. As many as 30 percent of nests in a given year may be incubated by males, while the hen is producing another nest. In the past, it was thought that males only incubated nests if the hen was killed by a predator. The message here is that quail are adapted to be highly productive given the right weather and habitat conditions. A single hen has been found to produce more than 50 chicks in a single year. Given their high mortality rate, managing habitat for nesting and brood rearing is paramount to producing huntable surpluses of quail. While quail use a long breeding season to produce a successful clutch, maintaining quality nesting and brooding habitat throughout the nesting season is important because weather conditions can greatly affect the timing and success of nesting.

Once hatched, quail chicks forage vigorously on arthropods, mostly insects. A 3-day-old chick consumes 2-3 grams of insects each day and by 10 days of age is eating as much as 6 grams of insects per day. That translates into hundreds of insects per day. Energy and protein provided by insects drive growth and feather development which are critical to chick survival. Studies of game birds similar to quail have linked arthropod abundance to the survival of chicks and to shootable surpluses available in the fall. Therefore, it is critical that management of lands to produce a huntable surplus of birds provide adequate insect-rich brood habitat.

Habitat

Northern bobwhite use early successional (i.e., weedy) habitats across a variety of landscapes in the South. Shootable populations can be produced in agricultural, forested and mixed landscapes. This section will outline the important characteristics of five key components of quail habitat: nesting, brooding, loafing, escape and feeding cover. To maximize quail numbers, each of these should be present within each 20-30 acres of managed areas--however, less will do if lower numbers will suffice.

Nesting Habitat

Having adequate quantities of quality nesting habitat is vital to producing quail. Quail usually locate nests in residual vegetation from the previous growing season. This type of vegetation is found in areas not burned or disked for two years. Patches of sparse broomsedge or other warm-season grasses offer excellent cover for nesting. Quail will avoid nesting in areas where the ground is covered with thick vegetation. Preferably, patches of nesting habitat should be two to 10 acres. Small patches of nesting cover make nests more vulnerable to predators. Also, plan to locate nesting cover on upland sites, away from lowlands that harbor many nest predators. Preferably, nesting habitat should cover 15-30 percent of the landscape.

Brood habitat

Quail chicks require a diet rich in insects. They also need cover from predators and loafing areas for escape from mid-day heat. Brood habitat is provided by a low (20-60 inch) canopy created by herbaceous vegetation that maintains a relatively open nature underneath. Areas with bare ground exposed (20-60 percent) are selected by chicks. For instance, ragweed or partridge pea create an excellent ground cover for broods and produce excellent insect popu­lations. As with nesting cover, thick ground cover is avoided by broods. Brood habitat does not need to be large--one to five acres will suffice--but it should be well-dispersed and near nesting cover.

Loafing cover

Quail with broods and fall/winter coveys often have loafing areas for resting, dusting and eluding the mid-day sun in summer. Quail chicks quickly become uncomfortable when exposed to the mid-day sun. Broods often use shaded areas beneath tall perennial vegetation, such as pokeberry, with bare ground underneath. In the winter, coveys use woody thickets, impenetrable to avian predators, for loafing cover.

Escape Cover

In open woodlands or agricultural areas, significant amounts of thicket are often necessary to localize coveys throughout the hunting season. Too much cover, such as large 4- to 8-year-old pine plantations, can reduce hunting opportunity. Providing well-dispersed patches of cover 15-50 yards wide increases the suitability of an area for quail and improves hunting success. Destroying too many thickets is a sure way to reduce the number of coveys on a property, especially during late winter.

Feeding Habitat

Though an opportunistic seed-eater, the quail's diet varies by season, sex and age. Table I shows the breakdown of food sources, by volume, taken from a sample of crops. In fall/winter, seeds of legumes, cultivated grains, tree mast and other seeds are important. Spring and summer, greens and insects are important for hens producing eggs. Consider that a single clutch of eggs weighs about as much as the hen--of which she may produce several. Later summer and early fall, grass seeds and fruits are taken. As mentioned earlier, insects are the primary diet item for quail chicks.

Quail prefer to forage directly from the ground and up to 12 inches above the ground. They are weak scratchers; therefore, maintaining areas of understory vegetation with ample bare ground exposed underneath is a critical aspect feeding habitat. Planting food patches can help to localize coveys of quail for improved hunting. While no research in the South has demonstrated a quail population increase due to supplemental feeding or food patches, food patches are used heavily by quail in habitats with poor mast and low food resources in the winter. Table 2 provides some suggestions for planting food patches. If you are interested in planting prescriptions, contact your state wildlife agency, extension specialist or Quail Unlimited.

QUAIL MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
Habitat Management Tools

Quail require areas that have been disturbed within the past one to three years. Disking and prescribed burning are common techniques for producing the proper groundstory conditions for all components of quail habitat. It is, however, the frequency and distribution of disturbance that "make or break" each component of quail habitat.

To provide the proper groundcover environment, aggressively thin your stands. Remove hardwoods not directly related to mast production and reduce the stocking of your pines.

Disking

Strip disking through open woodlands and abandoned agricultural fields was developed by Stoddard in the 1920s as a method to produce brood and feeding habitat for quail. Disking in November through January can create excellent brood habitat the following summer, depending on soil fertility. Recent research at Tall Timbers found that broods selected these areas over areas that were disked in the spring. In the fall and winter, areas disked the previous fall are used by quail as feeding habitat. Disking can be incorporated into habitat management by disking fire lanes, feed patches, skid lanes, landing areas, open woodland patches and fallow agricultural fields. Disking up to 30 percent of an area each year is not extreme, but it is expensive. Given a choice between spending money on planting food patches or disking more acreage, the latter has a better chance of increasing quail populations.

If a landowner plans to use food plots on a widespread basis, he needs to make proper management of the deer herd part of the overall quail management plan.

Table 1. Food habits of bobwhites collected on Tall Timbers Research Station. {Numerals in the body of the table are percent volume of crop contents. Numerals in parentheses indicate the number of birds in each monthly sample).

Source: Landers and Mueller 1992

 Prescribed Burning

Prescribed fire is the best tool, ecologically and economically, for maintaining quail habitat because it:

Burning or disking in a forest with high canopy cover will accomplish little. Also, burning infrequently, say every three to five years, will accomplish little for quail management.

On sites without significant native ground cover, prescribed burning can be practiced from the end of hunting season at least until late April to early May. Sites with species that sprout soon after the first warm spell, such as the annual lespedezas, are better burned during this time. On sites with significant amounts of wiregrass or other native ground cover, the vegetation is generally adapted to lightning-season burns. Burns during April, May and June will increase the likelihood of successful reproduction of these native species. These burns will also reduce the encroachment of hardwood tree species that eventually increase canopy closure and reduce the amount of light reaching the forest floor. Preliminary studies indicate that limited "growing season" fires do not negatively impact quail populations.

The objective in prescribed burning is to control the fire so that growing space is increased for seed- and insect-producing plants while leaving necessary amounts of escape, loafing and nesting cover and food. Tile best results are obtained from a mosaic pattern with 50-75 percent of the site burned with tile remainder in scattered patches. This diverse condition could be achieved through night burning or during the day after a rain has stopped. Another alternative is to burn about one-third of the area in 10- to 40-acre units each year, covering the entire property over three years. Using this methodology, the nature of the fire is not as critical to the "mosaic," but can be designed to cover each unit well, thereby providing some quail and forestry benefits. The land  owner should understand that vegetation types, weather patterns and governmental regulations are the ultimate constraints on the timing and location of a burn. The intensity of the fire and the uniformity of the fuel influence the variability of the post-burn site. Where fuels are uniform and lend themselves to high-intensity fires, mechanical fire lines or "ring-arounds" can provide nesting, food or cover sites.

If a landowner wishes to use prescribed fire on his property, he should consult with experienced land managers or forest consultants about the necessary equipment, required permits and smoke management techniques. Here in the South, landowners and managers face increasing numbers of new residents who have neither the connection with the land and its products not a fair understanding of fire. Prescribed fire practitioners must recognize that the right to bum can be taken away by a public mistrustful of unprofessional conduct.

FOREST MANAGEMENT AND QUAIL

Most professional foresters will tell you that forest management activities must be directed at the objectives of the landowner. On some properties, the objective is to maximize the number of shootable quail on the site. Other landowners want to emphasize timber management, while providing for some quail hunting. Still others want a moderate amount of annual timber income along with a moderate amount of quail. No matter the objective, a quail management program should integrate forest management into its objectives for ecological, economic and aesthetic reasons.

Table 2. Cultural information for selected plants of use in quail food plots.

Figure 1. A theoretical diagram of tradeoffs between quail productivity, represented by quail per acre, and timber productivity, represented by basal area of timber per acre. There is a very strong interrelationship between the amount of timber in the overstory and its effect on quail habitat, which, in turn impacts the amount of shootable quail. Where the tree canopy covers more than 50 percent of the ground, quail numbers drop dramatically.

Figure 1 shows that there is a tradeoff between quail management and timber management. You cannot maximize both quail and timber on the same piece of land. A high basal area results in full occupancy of the site, a greater degree of self-pruning leading to fewer quality-reducing knots. Such a forest management strategy will allow almost no light or moisture to support the cover and food plants that quail require. A lower basal area can lead to growth being concentrated on fewer trees, in some cases resulting in trees reaching sawlog size sooner, although there are fewer trees per acre. The landowner needs to choose: how much timber (quail) will he give up for a certain amount of quail (timber)?

A landowner interested in quail management should ask himself the following five questions:

 We do not have enough space to answer all combinations of the aforementioned questions, but let's look at a few examples.

Example I:

If you have a mature even-aged stand

If you have a mature even-aged stand, you can begin quail management by thinning now, reducing the overstory basal area. On good sites, even-aged stands can run to 120 square feet basal area per acre. Such stocking levels allow little light or moisture for the ground cover and are too dense for quail habitat. On the shooting plantations in the Red Hills region of southern Georgia and northern Florida, forestland managed exclusively for quail generally has 35 to 50 square feet per acre. In other parts of the South, even-aged stands with at least some quail on them have an overstory that can vary from 30 to 90 square feet per acre. Well-burned stands in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas can carry 70 to 75 square fed of basal area on sites where hunters can find up to l 0 coveys per day. Uneven-aged stands may vary from 45 to 80 square feet per acre. Conventional wisdom among wildlife biologists is to keep the basal area at levels equal to the site index--25. For example, such calculations would result in a residual basal area of 60 in a stand with a site index of 85. Where quail management is the principal focus, the canopy should not cover more than 50 percent of the ground. Start burning the understory on a short-interval cycle, say every one to two years. Begin disking on a wide-scale basis (10-30 percent of the ground cover). Smaller and more frequent harvests may be necessary to maintain several patches of habitat on the landscape. After harvesting, postpone replanting a year or two and reburn the cutover sites to maintain the herbaceous component.

The Succession Years for Quail In a Clearcut

Figure 2. The impact of clearcutting on quail populations.

Year 1

Second best year for quail [by slight margin over year three). Pine seedlings planted. Quail foods present are mostly annual plants, led by ragweed, followed by small partridge peas and crabgrass. Some perennial lespedezas begin to occur.

Year 2

Best year for quail, Planted pines still too small to affect other vegetation. Annual plants continue to dominate, again led by ragweed. Next most common quail food is common lespedeza. Crabgrass and small partridge peas decrease while perennial lespedezas and beggarweeds increase.

Year 3

Third best year for quail. Pine trees becoming significant in size, beginning to compete with quail food plants. Quail foods have peaked. Small partridge pea is most abundant quail food. Large partridge peas increase while ragweed and common lespedeza decrease in abundance. Perennial lespedezas and beggar-weeds at maximum.

Year 4

Quail now becoming scarce. Pine trees becoming a dominant species in the clearcut. Most quail foods declining, though small partridge peas continue to persist along with lespedeza procumben.

Year 5

Virtually no quail to be found. Pine trees forming canopy and shading out ground. Quail food plants succumb to shading, pine needle accumulation and competition from hardwood sprouts, blackberries and broomsedge.

Try to avoid using herbicides in site preparation for trees, particularly those chemicals targeting herbaceous species. You can also plant food plots to localize quail and improve your hunting. These tactics will bring your quail population up quickly, but they are expensive and must be maintained over the years.

Example 2: If a landowner has a young, normally stocked, even-aged stand

If a landowner has a young, normally stocked, even-aged stand, conduct prescribed fires starting 10 years after establishment. One can thin most planted stands between nine and 13 years after planting. Subsequent thinnings every eight to 12 years will remove poor-quality stems, favor growth of the crop trees and provide more light to the understory. Frequent burning will maintain the proper habitat (food and cover) for the quail. By age 30 on an average site, the stand will have about 60 to 70 square feet of basal area. At an age of 40 to 80 years, the final cut will remove saw logs. Manage all possible areas for brood and nesting cover, including the agricultural fields.

Example 2a:

If a landowner has a young, normally stocked, uneven-aged forest

If an owner desires to have an uneven-aged forest, the transition from the original even-aged stand to an uneven-aged forest is made over a period of years before the final harvest of the original overstory. Single-tree (loblolly-shortleaf) or group selection (longleaf) harvesting systems will allow the landowner to maintain quality quail habitat while retaining the opportunity of some economic returns from timber removals. These systems can reduce cash outlays for regeneration, concentrate growth on sawlog production and, once the stand structure is regulated, provide steady, but low, quail numbers and some timber income.

Example 3:

If you have large open areas

If you have large open areas, plant pines in strips to improve quail habitat. One property in coastal South Carolina broke up 20-to 30-acre crop fields with planted pine, laid out in strips eight to 12 rows wide. Although the original spacing was 8 by 8 feet, thinnings reduced the density so that light reaching the ground and moisture conditions were reduced, providing for quail food and cover plants. Also, the landowner kept a strip of grasses and legumes on both sides of this band of trees, supplying nesting cover through the middle of the fields.

Example 4:

In mixed woods and agricultural fields

To produce quail in mixed woods and agricultural fields, it may be more economical to relinquish some income from agricultural activities, than to intensively manage small- to medium-sized woodlots. These areas present special opportunities to manage for bobwhites. Crop land can be improved, especially grain crops, as summer habitat by providing fallow strips of vegetation 15-30 feet wide around each field. If fields are greater than 10 acres, consider leaving fallow strips down the center of fields, it is important that cover be present during the early spring and that these areas are not mowed each fall, but periodically disked to control hardwood encroachment. No-till management of crops, especially planting into wheat stubble or spring planted wheat, dramatically improves corn and soybean fields as brood and provides some nesting cover. Managing woodland edges in early successional habitats (i.e., small cutovers bordering fields that are periodically burned) provides winter cover and escape cover. Grain crops provide winter food resources. This should be combined with managing the larger upland blocks of forests in a more open state with prescribed burning and disking used to maintain the proper mix of groundstory vegetation types.

Logging and Herbicides: Implications for quail management

Harvesting in forest stands not only removes trees, but also disturbs the soil, both of which are beneficial to quail woodlands. If the pre-harvest woodland was dense, a good boost in quail numbers might last from three to five years after harvest. After that,

the forest management activities will determine the quail population dynamics. Large clearcuts will probably show an increase in quail numbers for a few years, but the vegetation will soon grow so thick as to become unsuitable for quail.

If there are thick growth and few quail, logging can be done at any time. Sites logged during the winter might see quail move in the following summer, but sites logged in the summer will not see any significant increase in quail numbers until the following nesting season. On sites with an open canopy and numerous quail, the sites should be logged from September to January if there is no hunting on the land. Sites should be logged from September to November and March to April, if there is to be hunting on the land. Harvesting during nesting season (late April to June) will cause abandonment of nesting and reduced and late hatches. After areas are logged, brush piles provide attractive nesting and loafing sites for quail for one to three years.

Herbicide use has long been an accepted practice in industrial forestry operations. Their prudent use can have a profound effect on planting survival and initial growth of pine seedlings. There is a very positive effect from using hexazinone (Velpar and Pronone) in first year release, Imazapyr (Arsenal) and Triclopyr (Garlon) will also give excellent results when used with established seedlings. When used as release treatments, both hexazinone and imazapyr will help legumes, important quail food, by eliminating competitors. Herbicides are not uniform in their killing power, however, and may cause a successional buildup of species that "got away."

CONCLUSIONS

Quail management can be practiced simultaneously with forest management. However, landowners must decide how much timber they want vs. how much quail. A greater emphasis on timber returns would dictate denser stocking, whereas a quail emphasis would require a more open stocking. Once the overstory stocking levels are chosen, a disturbance regime of fire and/or mechanical disturbance, such as disking, is essential in maintaining the food and cover plants used by quail. The overstory species and understory growth will dictate the intervals between prescribed fires.

Whether you choose an even- or an uneven-aged system, the length of time the tree cover remains on the site must take into account the need to maintain the quail habitat. Once you decide on your quail to timber ratio, management of quail woodlands can provide timber income and quail hunting opportunities for the landowner.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank Leonard Brennan, Bob Farrar, Jim Guldin, Steven Lindeman, Ron Myers and Rich Pouncey for their suggestions in the preparation of this article.

For more information: contact Tall Timbers Research Station, Route 1, Box 678, Tallahassee, FL 32312-9712.