Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 21:24:33 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Charles Vaughn Subject: Re: quail decline In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT The quail decline has taken place over much too wide a geographic region to be blamed on anything local. I've been told that a bad ice storm a number of years ago is the main cause of the situation. I think the decline covers the entire north eastern U.S. as far west as Ohio or Indiana and perhaps as far south as the Carolinas. >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. Charles Vaughn 1306 Frederick Avenue Salisbury, MD 21801 410-742-7221 essc@comcast.net [NOW PREFERRED] stamps@sea-east.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================