Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 09:03:07 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Re: Prince George's County field trip -- Pheasant In-Reply-To: <3E486CC1.808@starpower.net> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit on 02/10/2003 10:23 PM, rob gibbs at robgibbs@STARPOWER.NET wrote: > > Any thoughts on the problem of fescue in PG county or other areas? > This is an interesting and probably valid hypothesis for bobwhte decline in farming areas, but it still does not explain the loss of this species where such vegetation changes have not taken place (e.g. Lilypons itself), nor some of the other areas where quail used to be common (for example, powerline areas and various parks that still support good stands of native grasses, broomsedge etc.) I spoke to staff at the Patuxent Visitor's Center the last time I was there (since a picture of bobwhite is prominently displayed at the edge of their meadow and I hoped that meant there were some around!) and they also confirmed a decline or near-loss of this species in the last few years, despite good habitat practices. That having been said, the bobwhite we found in D.C. frequented the extensive unmowed areas of Kenilworth and vicinity. This is very nice-looking meadow, lots of native grasses and forbs. Does anyone know if Kinder Park (which also looks great habitat-wise) supports bobwhite? It may be, to paraphrase something Baltimore Sun columnist Tom Horton wrote about Striped Bass several decades ago -- "We should not be looking for a single cause of the [bobwhite] decline -- there are a host of arrows out there and they are all aimed at the [quail]." Gail Mackiernan 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================