Natural History

With game birds, habitat is key. Without proper habitat, you’ll not have game birds. You can stock them, but without proper cover, they will fall to predation. And without proper access to cultivated fields and open pasture, the birds won’t make it long.

My grandparents and great grandparents lived in a land very different from the dense woodlands that cover most of West Virginia today. The land was used for intensive agricultural enterprises. The land was at best marginal to large scale crop production, but because they relied so much on what they could grow, they had to work as much of the land as possible.

When Europeans first came to this part of West Virginia, they cut small clearings in the forest and then shot all the wolves, cougars, and bears. They relied on wild game and domestic hogs for meat. They later took up small scale grazing of sheep and cattle. When the timber companies came in the decades following the Civil War, the forests were almost entirely cleared

Then market hunters killed off most of the white-tailed deer and wild turkeys, and everyone came to rely on domesticated animals for meat. Hog-raising and cattle husbandry became skills that were passed on from generation to generation.

As a result of having so much open land where corn and other grains could be grown, the northern bobwhites were the most common game bird.

Now, bobwhites do need some cover. They have to have it to hide from predators, and because they roost on the ground, they need some dense bushes to cover them up.

However, they do tend to thrive where there are fields of grain and pasture land. These areas are even better for them if there are some areas at the edges of the cultivated land with some of those dense thickets.

The way pastures and agricultural land was maintained in those days was to leave some “waste” at the edge of the field. The really super-powerful mowing machines were unknown in those days, and most crops and hay were cut using scythes. It would be too much effort to cut the waste at the edge of the field, so these areas were left intact for the bobwhites.

Also, because the land was open, the hawks didn’t have many perches from which to launch their attacks.  Except for the harrier, most hawks can’t hover in the air and then drop down on their prey.

By the 1970’s, though, things changed. Scientific management of forests had finally begun to pay off in West Virginia.  Agriculture became much more profitable and efficient in other areas of the country, so people were less interested in farming the high ridges. It was cheaper to buy food at the grocery store. Also, the post-war industrial boom had provided new incentives for people leave the hills and give up on hill-farming forever. As a result of these changes, the land was becoming more and more forested.

The bobwhites lost their food source, and it also became easier for the hawks to hunt them. The hawks now had far more platforms from which to swoop down on the bobwhites.

After losing much of their food souce and having lost their ability to avoid predation, bobwhite numbers began to decrease.

Then in the late 70’s, harsh winters did them in. They simply could not put up with that much snow and such low temperatures.

By the time I was born, the bobwhite had disappeared from most of West Virginia. And it hasn’t returned since.

Quail Forever’s 2008 hunting forecast for West Virginia painted a bleak picture:

With approximately three-quarters of the state in forested land, marginal habitat and limited agricultural production, bobwhite opportunities in the Mountain State remain limited. The best quail habitat lies in the Greenbrier River Valley, the eastern panhandle and in isolated pockets along the Ohio River Valley. West Virginia hunters can again expect to see a harvest of less than 1,000 bobs.

I don’t live in any of those places. And when they say “Ohio Valley,”  they mean the lower part of the Ohio Valley in West Virginia, where the land is largely flat and still open. Indeed, there are lots of large farms for corn and tobacco down there. Where I live,  you aren’t going to see anything like that.

So I live in a bobwhite-free zone. However, we have plenty of other animals. We have a growing population of wild turkeys, a sizeable population of ruffed grouse, and very good woodcock numbers. These animals didn’t do so well when the land was open and full of cornfield and pastures. And partly because the forests have returned, we now have a growing black bear population. And I don’t have to mention that we have tons of deer.

It’s not unusual to hear old-timers wax romantic about those long days in the hayfields, where they spend hour after hour swinging a scythe through the tall grass. As the sweat would pour from their brows, they would hear the little feeding calls of the bobwhites as they scurried around the fields, catching little insects and nibbling on tiny grass seeds.

But those days are past. The ubiquitous nature of the bobwhite in those days was an unnatural occurence.  Like the farmers, the little game birds relied upon an unnaturally open landscape to make their living, and once people found they no longer had farm in order to eat, the land returned to the dense forests. And these forests were no homes for the bobwhites.

Because I grew up in a land of dense forests, I was more likely to see a black bear than a bobwhite. I think I can handle the trade.