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Subject:

Historical Quail Presence and habitat trends in Maryland

From:

Sam Droege

Reply-To:

Sam Droege

Date:

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:29:38 -0400

All:  Below is an excerpt from a paper that we will be publishing in the 
Journal of the Washington Entomological Society.  While nominally about 
rare insects occurring along the Patuxent River it covers the historical 
background of open lands in the Maryland and Mid-Atlantic area (including 
bird patterns) and documents that the region had significant open areas 
going back to the ice age....including a subspecies of Bobwhite endemic 
(to the NE. Colinus virginianus marilandicus L).

sam
--------------------
Historical context

Currently these unusual plant and animal communities exist within small 
pockets of open sandy land along the Patuxent River.  These micro-deserts 
occur in what would appear to be largely neglected lands associated with 
power lines, roadsides, old sand and gravel operations, and on a few 
protected conservation lands.  We are most familiar with sites occurring 
from Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary in Anne Arundel County upstream to Laurel, 
Maryland (Fig. 1), at which point the river meets the Piedmont and the 
sandy soils largely disappear. Sites may exist to the south of Jug Bay, 
but geological and soils maps indicate a lack of the deep sand formations 
found to the north.

Micro-deserts are located on deep sandy soils primarily on the 
northeastern side of the river where the prevailing winds have deposited 
the sand from marine and alluvial deposits exposed and reworked by the 
river (Glaser 1971).  Evidence from Native American archaeological sites 
buried by blowing sands  indicate that these sites were open and exposed 
during the Hypsithermal period approximately 4-6,000 years before present 
(Curry 1992).  During the Hypsithermal period the region's temperatures 
averaged about 5° C higher than present and climate was much drier (Pielou 
1991). At this time prairie plants, and undoubtedly their animal 
counterparts, migrated eastward from the Midwest.  The abundance and 
patterns of geologically recent wind blown sand lenses throughout the 
Coastal Plain of Maryland (Glaser 1971) as well as data from pollen cores 
provides further evidence that during this period there were extensive 
non-forested areas, frequent fires, and a greatly increased abundance of 
pine (Brush 1994, Willard et al. 2003). 

As climate subsequent to the Hypsithermal became wetter and cooler, these 
non-forested openings must either have persisted in place or landscape 
gaps and openings were always plentiful enough to retain these 
populations.  Initial European records from the region during exploration 
and settlement documented that areas of grasslands and low brush covered 
many square miles in the Great Valley and across a large swath of Howard, 
Carroll, and Baltimore counties of Maryland (Marye 1955a,b,c).   Land 
records and early colonial newspaper accounts also documented similar 
barrens and open land in the sandy terraces along the Patuxent River on 
the present site of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (formerly the 
training grounds of the U.S. Army's Fort Meade) and the surrounding area. 
These colonial open lands covered an area within and to the northeast of 
the region where the Big and Little Patuxent rivers join (Earle 1975). 
Additional unrecorded sites also were likely to have existed throughout 
the region given the historic and archeological evidence of dense Native 
American villages along the river (Browne 1985) and the general scarcity 
of written accounts during the period between initial contact and Native 
American depopulation.

Native Americans were known to have made extensive use of fire to create 
and maintain grasslands attractive to game, to drive game during hunting, 
and expedite foraging (Whitney 1994).  These fires were frequent enough to 
have affected the forest composition and structure, at least locally. 
Several accounts from the 17th century in the mid-Atlantic area noted the 
open nature of forests, lack of underbrush, and the presence of good 
stands of grass within these forests (Force 1846, Hall 1910).  Colonial 
records of boundary trees marking the original grants from the 17th and 
early 18th centuries in Anne Arundel County indicate a land whose large 
trees were dominated by oak and hickory, with few references to the less 
fire tolerant tulip-poplar (Liriodendron tulpifera L.) (Earle 1975).

Pollen profiles from Chesapeake Bay sediments dating back 2300 years ago 
indicate that early successional tree species such as pine and sweetgum (
Liquidambar styraciflua ) were continuously present but in perhaps varying 
 ratios from that found today (Schneider 1996, Willard et al. 2003). Pine, 
in particular, requires bare soil and full sun to germinate, an indication 
that disturbance by fire, windthrow, or the cultivation of lands by Native 
Americans resulted in large acreages of exposed soil.

Following European colonization, open land and its associated flora and 
fauna persisted via a number of processes.  Early cultivation practice 
(common until the late 1700s) was hoe-based, utilizing planting mounds, 
rather than the plow.  On most sites tobacco was grown following land 
clearance and, as fertility declined, the land was planted to corn (Smith 
1986).  Once the land could no longer support corn it was allowed to lie 
fallow for 20 or more years before the cycle was repeated.  In such a way, 
the land was kept in a patchwork of early successional stages, with much 
of its native open-country flora and fauna likely retained. We believe 
that the lands along the river were too sandy and poor in nutrients to 
support heavy plantings of nutrient hungry tobacco and corn and were more 
likely kept open through grazing, fire, windthrow, along with naturally 
steep river banks. 

In addition to direct forest loss due to agricultural practices, early 
records in Anne Arundel County indicate that most forests were quickly 
cleared, with large amounts of wood products extracted from non-tillable 
lands.  This resulted in wood shortages by the 1700s as demand for 
fencing, building, and energy needs exceeded supply (Earle 1975).

A further force in keeping colonial forest cover low was the establishment 
in the 1730s of the Patuxent Iron Works which opened up a set of foundries 
and forges along the Big and Little Patuxent rivers downstream of Laurel 
designed to exploit the iron containing nodular siderite-limonite deposits 
located nearby (Bernstein 1980). Those operations required great amounts 
of charcoal for the smelting and working of iron.  For each ton of pig 
iron produced, 100-400 bushels of charcoal were required.  An average 
colonial furnace was thus estimated to clear 100 acres of woods a year 
through charcoal production (Whitney 1994).  The owners of the Patuxent 
Iron Works owned 32 square miles of the region's land (Cook 1976), much of 
that likely used to produce charcoal.  Despite their extensive 
landholdings, the Iron Works had to close its operations in the 1850s due 
to lack of charcoal (Benson 1992). 

Forest cover in Anne Arundel County has at its minimum in the late 1800?s 
(Schneider 1996) and subsequently climbed from 49% in 1907-1914 to 65% in 
1950, and thereafter declined with increased human population density to 
43% in 2000 (MD DNR 2000).  Other than the continuing agricultural 
activities and the small amount of forestry in the region, the only other 
significant disturbance along the sandy terraces of the region has been 
that of the gravel and sand extraction operations that began in the early 
1900s.

Additional indirect evidence for the past presence of open, grass covered 
lands includes historic records of open country grazing animals such as 
bison and elk plus endemic eastern subspecies of obligate grassland or 
scrub birds such as Heath Hen (Tympanuchus cupido cupido L), Henslow's 
Sparrow (Ammodramus henslowii susurrans Brewster),  Bewick's Wren (
Thryomanes bewickii altus Audubon), and Northern Bobwhite (Colinus 
virginianus marilandicus L.) (Askins 1999) all of which have declined 
greatly or become extinct.  Archaeological evidence also indicates the 
long-term presence of Northern Bobwhite as a Native American food item 
within the region (Bolgiano 2000).  In order to persist and evolve into 
subspecies, this group of species would have depended on the continuous 
presence of extensive acreages of open grasslands and scrub in the East.

As mentioned previously, past climatic and cultural conditions likely 
resulted in the consistent presence of open land throughout the region. 
Past patterns of chronic disturbance contrasts with the current absence of 
fire and only small scale disturbances such as agriculture, grazing, and 
settlement; resulting in a slow afforestation of this region along with 
growing permanent housing. 

In the following sections we document a set of plants and insects from 
four taxonomic groups that are either restricted to or unusually abundant 
in the residual micro-deserts along the Patuxent River.  In all cases it 
should be noted that this information comes from observer chosen 
collecting activities at specific accessible sites along the river. 
Consequently, while the issue of regional rarity remains clear, the 
complete pattern of occurrence and co-occurrence will not be made until 
more systematic surveys take place.
P Please don't print this e-mail unless really needed.



"George M. Jett" <> 
Sent by: Maryland Birds & Birding <>
09/29/2008 07:19 PM
Please respond to
"George M. Jett" <>


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[MDOSPREY] Fw: MD OSPREY -- QUAIL






Folks

This note in its entirety was sent to me by a "viewer" of MDOsprey who is 
not on the listserve.  He asked me to post it.  It is below.  I take no 
responsibility for its content, and do not want to answer questions about 
it.  Send any comments you have directly to the creator of the message. 
See the From: address.

George

----- Original Message ----- 
From: M Loovis 
To:  
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 5:44 PM
Subject: MD OSPREY -- QUAIL


George,

I am a Baltimore birder that has long enjoyed MD OSPREY.  Usually I feel 
no need to post on the system but I still enjoy reading the reports.  I 
did try to subscribe today, but the system rejected me due to it reaching 
its capacity.  If you could please, pass this email on to Lance, or post 
in on the system:

I would like to add to the dilemma that was posed by Lance Biechele.   The 
Bobwhite quail is one of the birds I have struggled to understand its 
population decline also.  Now, I am no genius, but I know that prior to 
the 1600s, most of the east was covered by "Old Growth Forests".  There 
are estimates that the Ivory Billed Woodpeckers range extended north to 
the mid Atlantic.  Now I can't vouch for this, of course, but I wonder  if 
historically the Bobwhite quail was ever numerous?  Did it just have a 
"population boom" along with meadowlarks and other like birds during the 
clearing of the forests to farm land during the 17th and 18th centuries? 

On another note, I do know that many game-bird farms purposely stock the 
countryside with various species for people to shoot, with the Bobwhite 
often being one of them.  It does well in captivity and I have even seen 
it on display in California on the property of Cline Wineries in a cage 
that was next to other cages containing Chukar and other Pheasants.  It 
seemed they were not stressed under the conditions.  Maybe  these releases 
have a local effect on certain populations and that some are even farm 
raised turned wild. 

Another question:

What are the regulations on Mourning Dove hunting in MD?  I have seen 
signs posted at Myrtle Grove in Charles County (George, maybe you know 
what I am talking about) that permit it.  I have never seen anyone shoot 
doves and I don't know how popular it is among hunters.   But if people do 
participate in dove hunting, I wonder, did we learn any lessons with the 
demise of the Passenger Pigeon? 

 Just some food for thought,

Mike Loovis
Baltimore, MD