Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 19:06:50 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Re: quail decline In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I can't speak to the situation on the Eastern shore, but a few years ago when Barry and I were in Texas birding (coast and Rio Grande Valley) we saw oodles of Quail AND oodles of Turkeys. In the same areas. There was one field which we walked, in fog so dense that we almost couldn't find our way back to the car, in the futile hope of flushing Sprague's Pipit. What we did flush was covey after covey of quail. I have never seen so many quail in one spot. There were also lots of wild turkeys around,(over 50 seen later that morning when the fog lifted) but they were more in the wooded edges than out in the scrubby fields. Of course quail have disappeared around here in places that do not have any wild turkeys, like my old property and Northwest Branch Park, so something more is going on. Gail Mackiernan Colesville, MD gail@mdsg.umd.edu ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================