Late Summer 2009

NEW POND and DOCK

I've been reading and commenting on the "Missouri Quail Guy's" blog and enjoying it so much I've not posted much here. The summer work at BWQ Farm has been mainly focused on a dock for my new pond and the water habitat improvement to get ready for fish in September. The fathead minnows were added in June. The wet weather hasn't bothered them. I've seen a school of hatchlings so they have been reproducing all summer. I was adding the canoe racks on the dock and was in the water bolting the crossarm in place.

The minnows were nibbling at my legs. I guess they were checking for algae. The pond has filled and for the first time flowed out the trickle pipe. The switch grass planted around the pond has grown much faster than I expected. In places it it knee high. I tried to sew some red clover in bare spots caused by the rain. A week later it rained again and the clover is gone. I'll have to do some patch work on the grass this fall. I'll put in wheat and then next spring I'll add some warm season grass seed. I've got some little bluestem but may buy some more switch grass since it has done so well in all areas except where the dirt moved due to rain.

QUAIL HABITAT WORK

I've worked on clearing two areas on the North side of my farm. They were burnt off this spring and then I sprayed Glyo after the fescue came up. Lee Metcalf (MDC) commented that I waited just right when I sprayed them as the grass were setting seed. At that time most of the plants energy is going to make seed and the Glyo is more effective. At first I was worried I didn't spray heavy enough but after three weeks it was burned down. My buddy Doug brought his tractor over and disk up most of the areas. I had paid for the track hoe that was working on my pond to rip out the larger, over 2 inch diameter, trees. Most were Honey Locust, or as I call them F-ing thorn trees. I wanted them pulled out so that we could disk and plant without tearing up the equipment. The smaller saplings get Crossbow and diesel sprayed on them and once I'm sure their dead I cut them with my Stihl brush cutter. Here are some photos of the areas. We got sorgum milo and red clover broadcast on one area, the other we left alone. I'm going to try planting a warm season grass mix next spring. I plan on spraying it again this fall to make sure all the grass is dead. Then if we catch a nice day in early spring disk it again and finally cultipack it. It should then be ready for planting.

This is the area I didn't plant and plan on putting in a strip of Warm Season Grass and a strip of food plots. The "grass" strip along the corn in the left picture is where I have planted shrubs this spring. The False Indigo, below, likes the spot and several of the plants are waist high after only 6 months!

Below is the second of the two areas on the north end. You can see the corn looks good and so does the milo grass. I call it milo grass since it was sewn from a hand seeder with the setting

open enough for the big seed to go through but I couldn't walk fast enough to get it thin enough. Last time I checked it was setting heads but is really thick. The open area will get WSG.

Below the milo grass is the red clover and the wonderful BWQ plant, ragweed. Please ignor the dreadful BWQ plant, fescue, in the photo. I didn't kill this grass, yet, but I will.

The photo on the right is where I am finally doing it right. I sprayed the fescue before I cut the locust trees next month to create edge feathering. Now when I chop and they drop, I'm done. I don't have to go back and try to spray in and around the brush pile.

The milo I planted this year may be the last for a while. This fall I'm planting some wheat and then next spring I'm putting in RoundUp ready soybeans in my food plots. I can then spray over them and take out the sumac and other undesirable weeds and grass that comes in. After a year or two, when the grass is gone for good I will change back to a sparse milo or corn patch with weeds. I know the deer will hit the beans hard but I'll have 75 acres of true crop ground that they are going to eat anyway. Maybe they will eat the wildlife beans and not the beans for market? Fat chance.

My next update will be after my October covey count. Did I mention that I haven't seen or heard a Quail since Turkey season. They have got to be there, I hope they are there, wish me luck.

Spring 2009 Progress

Wow, what a spring! Time has really flown by at BWQ Farm. I thought I would recap what's been going on since my last post following the "award". Lets see, where to start? In Febuary I created 8 more downed timber structures, a.k.a. brush piles. Only 20 or so more to go.

I contracted to have a pond built in my front ditch with help (cost share) from NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service). It will be about 1 acre. When NRCS recommended planting fescue on the dam and filter strips I thought, great, I've spent two years trying to eradicate fescue from my farm and here I'm going to have to plant it! Fortunately they had another planting option, Switch Grass. I'm not the biggest fan of Switch out of all the WSG (warm season grass) because I read it can get really dense, but I think I can control it after establishment by timing my burns. I'll have to look up exactly when to burn, when the time comes around in a couple of years. In the mean time if I happen to throw in some clover seed in the buffer strips and perhaps some lespedeza this fall I can get some nesting and brooding habitat for BWQ from adding a pond. Next spring my plan is to plant shrub plantings for HQ's in the buffer strips. My dam runs East to West with the back slope facing North. If it faced South it would remind me of a pond dam that I hunted years ago. On a cold winter day the BWQ would be basking in the sunshine under buck brush and blackberry canes. If you approached from the top of the dam they would flush into the trees down the creek before you could get a shot. If you came up the creek they would run to the top an you would hear them fly straight across the open water to the incoming creek cover.

Sorry for the trip down memory lane but often when I'm trying to visualize what, where, and how I'm going to create that perfect quail habitat I remember back to where I found those dependable coveys. You know the ones you can always depend on being there for the young dog to find. Or for you after a hard day "exploring" new territory. I can now visualize those coveys and the habitat. Coupled with my increasing BWQ knowledge I believe I can see the habitat elements and understand why the quail were there when they were there. I caution you not to do the opposite mental visualization. Last fall I was standing in areas of perfect fall habitat. The ragweed was shoulder high over wildflowers and open bare ground. My edge feathering was in place so where are the quail? I'm still pondering that question but I know longer lament their absence on that day. This spring when doing my shrub and tree planting I found old roosts in areas that I have never flushed a bird! I hope the answer is that the birds were there and I'm just not that good of a hunter (like the research shows, humans are not that efficient of quail predators). The good old days may have been good because we had a surpluses of birds in marginal (easily hunted) areas. By definition, if I'm creating perfect quail habitat have I made it impossible to hunt them?

Back to the progress report.

I burned three fescue grass areas this spring and will be spraying glyophosphate on them this Memorial weekend. Yes I know you are supposed to spray in the fall and then burn in the spring. Two years in a row I've waited for the shrubs to drop their leaves and go dormant and then spray the fescue while it was still actively growing. Since I only have weekends to work at the farm I never got a weekend that worked out. It was either windy or rainy when I wanted to spray. I've gotten poor kills doing this in the last two years because I sprayed in April before the grass was very tall. This year I've waited till the fescue, following the burn, is up and is 8 to 1o inches tall. I know I may kill some ragweed but I want to try it anyway. This fall I will try to spray the final areas to be burned in 2010.

I planted 655 tree/shrub seedlings this April and May. That adds to the 250 in 2007 and the 525 in 2008. I hadn't ever added these numbers up but since I've looked them up its neat to know that I've planted 1,430 seedlings. Most have gone into future HQ's to replace my downed timber structures. The plums I planted in 2007 are leafed out but were still struggling from their tops being nipped off by deer. I hope they are growing roots and can get fully established this year. Then start filling in. They were planted on a 5' x 5' grid pattern so they look like spread out sticks instead of a Covey Headquarter. I know I've got to wait 5 years but its hard to be patient. In the future I'll post a list of the different species I've planted and how they are doing. I bought my own dibble bar (planting bar) for $47 from CSP outdoors. Most MDC private land conservationists have ones that you can borrow. I borrowed the St. Joseph office's tree planter you pull behind a tractor. But with all the rain I couldn't use it so all the trees were put in by hand using the dibble bar.

The trouble with deer and turkey hunting is it takes time away from quail habitat improvement, also known as hard work. My friends don't understand how much enjoyment I get at the end of a long day knowing I got the trees planted, or that I got the lost 6 acres burned. I must admit that turkey hunting was very good to me this year. On Saturday of the second weekend I called in a bird for my daughter, her first in three years. At 10:00 we went back out and I called a second one in for me. Yes hers was bigger by weight (23 lbs to my scrawney 17 lbs) but I bested her 1-1/8" spurs with 1-3/8". I am assuming mine might have been a 4 year old, well past his prime.

He wanted nothing to do with the gobbler decoy but headed straight toward the jake and hen I had also set out.

I heard several BWQ whistling while out hunting but never saw them. I did flush a pair with my truck on opening Monday.

The last Sunday of the season I was spraying locust and hedge sprouts with Crossbow and diesel when I caught a glimpse of a male quail sneaking away through the grass. Since he didn't flush I looked for a nest but didn't find it.

My sharecrop farmer got our corn planted on the 9th of May and the report as of today is that it is up above ground. Now, no more gully washers and a good nesting season!

Missouri Conservation Farmer of the Year!

I wrote the following after learning that I had been selected as the 2009 conservation farmer of the year. Frankly I am awed that I was selected. The Wildlife Society is the profession organization for wildlife professionals. Given a life "do-over" I might easily have chosen the path of a wildlife biologist rather than that of science teacher and subsequently an electrical engineer. Not that I would change anything (isn't that the accepted cliche?) of my life, but its fun to dream.

Because of time constraints at the meeting I roughly covered the "Thank You" section with a few ad libs. I thought the fuller story might be of interest to others so here it is. I stayed up late writing it so if it seems sappy I ask for the readers indulgence.

THANK YOU:

I would like to thank the Mo Chapter of the Wildlife Society for this award. This is a wonderful acknowledgement of my efforts to improve the quail habitat on my farm. I would also like to thank Nate Mechlin and the Missouri Dept. of Conservation for their assistance.

Also, a special thanks needs to go out to the Dodd family of Cameron, Mo. We exchange labor and share equipment between our farms and most importantly they have provided me a place to stay. This plaque will find a home in Doug’s Man-Barn.

I also would like to introduce my wife, Karen, co-signer on the farm mortgage. Over the last two years she is has supported me in this new endeavor, as she has over the previous 25. Thank you.

My final thanks go to all the research biologists in attendance and your colleges. I want you to know that I understand that doing wildlife field studies takes enormous amounts of time in the worst of weather conditions. When I read the interesting fact that during severe winter weather Quail move less than 70 feet from their roost, I understand that a wildlife biologist, or at least a grad student, was out there with an antennae walking around the brush pile, that a wildlife biologist was out there in the summer trapping birds and fitting them with radio collars while fighting off mosquitoes, ticks and chiggers. I understand that what is known about Bobwhite Quail or other wildlife species is often not easily learned.

FULL STORY:

I was going to tell you the story of growing up in Missouri and Quail hunting here for the last 35 years, but you know how the sad story goes. We have all been witness to the Quail population dropping year after year. One author wrote about it this way…

“The ‘olden days,’ when quail were so plentiful that almost any hunter could take his limit at will, are gone." The author was not talking about the olden days of 1980's, 1970' or even the 1960's. It was written by Jack Stanford in 1952. (Whirring Wings)

I wonder how he would write it today.

“The poor days when quail were so scarce you were lucky to find a single covey and felt blessed to harvest one, are gone”

10 years ago I realized what I had lost and didn’t like it. A lost Quail population was not something that I wanted to sit and ponder in my old age reminiscing about the "olden days."

My family calls me Mr. Fix-It. I don’t know if I got that name because I’m good at fixing things or because I never throw away anything that’s broke. I tell them if they would stop breaking things I wouldn't have to be Mr. Fix-It.

All I need to fix something is the right knowledge and the right tool.

So 10 years ago it was only natural for Mr. Fix-it to approach fixing the lack of quail in the same manner.

1st thing was, get the knowledge. So I went to the Quail experts:

Stoddard – 1931
Errington – 1936
Davis – 1949
Stanford – 1952
Schwartz – 1959
Rosene - 1969
Roseberry & Klimstra – 1984
Guthery – 2000


I became an amateur Quail expert. I had my Quail library and all the knowledge I needed. I knew the annual life cycle for bobwhite quail. I read and considered the merits of competing theories of Doomed Surplus v. the Additive Model v. Density Dependence.

Now all I needed was the right tools and the lack of Quail could be fixed.

I was sure that the farmers where I hunted would be more than happy to spend their time and money to increase their Quail populations so I could have more fun!

Well, you know how that went. But I told them, “Hey, not a problem look at all of these government programs where you can offset your costs of habitat improvement by changing the way you’ve always farmed and the way your Dad always farmed the place.”

My dream of getting these farms, my old Quail hunting hot spots, back to their former glory was not going to happen. But I continued to read about Bobwhites and the more I read the more motivated I became. The only solution was to buy my own farm.

It turns out most people that own farms don’t want to sell them, or if they do, they price it like there is a gold mine on the back forty. Fortunately my good friends near Cameron, who I pestered constantly for 5 years, finally put me on to a friend of a friend who was willing to take less than an arm and a leg for 175 acres. They only wanted an arm.

In the first week of January 2007 Karen and I signed the papers and closed the deal. Karen asked me what I was going to do now that we had a farm. I told her I didn’t know about her but I was going to go lay out in the middle of the harvested bean field and sweep my arms and legs back and forth making a big Dirt Angel. (Early January was dry in 2007)

My dream of owning a farm had come true. My other dream was a dream about Quail.

I dreamed of having so many Quail:

· they bordered on being a nuisance,
· you couldn’t get out of your truck without a covey scaring the tar out of you,
· people driving by have to swerve to keep from hitting them and damaging their car,
· Scott, who farms the ground for me, constantly complains about all our crop losses,
· a dog can’t retrieve a bird without the next covey getting up,
· and each Covey that flushes, flushes the next and the next, the wave of Bobwhites rolls away across the prairie grasses.


To realized this dream of Quail I was going to need some help. You might be wondering why an amateur Quail biologist that had read everything he could get his hands on would need help.

You also have to realize that before the farm was mine, cattle had been allowed to graze the bean stubble after harvest, the fescue water ways and the little bit of timber I have. They were left on the farm a month too long. They ate the fescue down to the crowns, the tops out of the sumac, they ate the broom sedge, they were even eating the hedge apples and honey locust pods. My primary habitat type was cow patties and thorn trees.

The task at hand was daunting. I had never done habitat improvement before. The books showed me what I wanted, what the quail needed, but not so much on how to do it. As they say the Devil is in the Details.


So I invited Lee Metcalf (MDC private lands conservationist – Carrolton) to come look at my farm. We drove around and he looked it over. After the tour he asked me what my goal was. I told him that I knew I had 3 coveys on or along the edge of my farm to start with. In 5 years I wanted to have 10 coveys. I had done the math, 1 bird per acre, 175 acres, 175 birds, 17 birds per covey, therefore 10 coveys.

I will always be grateful for his answer. “No Problem, you’ve got miles of edge”

No soft peddling, no hedging. Just, “no problem, you’ve got miles of edge”

He said he would make out a management plan for me and I think he may have said something about it would take a little hard work. Here was a “Professional” that had seen lots of other farms and experienced the accomplishment of others. He had looked at my farm and didn’t think I was crazy when I told him I wanted 10 coveys. In hindsight I probably should have listen to the part about the amount of work a little better.

I won’t bore you with the details but my mantra for BWQ Farm is “must kill all fescue, locust and hedge”.

It has been an interesting two years. I would be happy for any of you to come visit my farm and see what I’m doing and how the dream is coming along. Nate and Lee can attest to the fact I love talking about Quail but I also carry around a Camera and field guides to wildflowers, birds, butterflies, prairie grasses, even amphibians.

I started my little talk by acknowledging that today the Quail population in Missouri is a sad story with a few exceptions. In 2011 I hope to be able to report that there is another exception. That on a 175 acre farm in Caldwell County the Quail are so thick the coveys get up one after the other and the wave of Bobwhites float out across the prairie grass.

New MU Extension Bulletin G9421

I must have jinxed myself with the previous comment about technology. I purchased increased DSL speed and it now drops out every 5 minutes. I guess I won't bore the reader with the detail, lets talk Quail (as long as I stay connected).

Just read over the MU extension bulletin G9421, "Field Borders for Agrinomic, Economic and Wildlife Benefit." It was published November 2008. I don't know any of the authors, but I will read anything Bill White of MDC has to say about Bobwhites.

Nothing really new here, a few good economic examples to try and convince farmers of the potential benefits though it stops short of placing an economic value on increased Quail numbers. For me, that is the value for which I purchased my farm.

Other points I found interesting:

1. Three different grass communities were established along crop fields; fescue, cool season mixture and warm season mixture.

2. There was no difference in the crop yields based on the type of grass. (and heavy weed component).

3. Insect pests did not increase, in fact the European Corn Borer management was "potentially enhanced" along WSG borders due to the increased predator insects found in the WSG.

In the Establishment techniques section the authors recommend 30 foot or more for border width and give a couple of recipes for WSG and forbs mixtures depending on erosion potential. Of interesting note is the mention of a "Natural Field Border" as in not planting grasses! This may be the best section of the paper. It still requires spraying, burning and disking, but the planting is reduced to adding legumes.

I only have a few locations on my farm where crop fields abut forest. The majority of my crop fields lay between wide grassy fingers. These fingers contained some mature trees in small groups but I am slowly turning them into brush piles and firewood. By spaying the fescue in these fingers I've gotten an unbelievable ragweed and native wildflower response. It has been even better following the burns I did in 2008.

I will add a few photos of my own Field Borders below:

The picture on the left is a before and the one on the right is an after. After cutting an moving the locust and hedge trees and after spraying the fescue. Between the far end of the row of downed timber structure and the pile on the horizon is a planting of 75 plum seedlings. For those that don't recognize the brown weeds in the foreground it is common ragweed. I couldn't help but throw in a little patch of milo half way up.

New Blog

Though kicking and screaming in resistance to learning any new software, I'm now a blogger (one g or two?). It all started when I went to look at a new blog site on Bobwhite Quail restoration and habitat management http://morequail.blogspot.com/. I wanted to send a comment to the Blog person and relate my experience so far in improving Quail habitat on my farm. While muddling around looking for a place to comment I ended up here. I have been keeping a diary (hand written no less) since I purchased my farm in January 2007. I've fallen behind over the last few months and was thinking of making entries on my laptop instead. This serendipitous occurrence of blog discovery may be a reasonable solution in that I can share my drivel with others. Should you figure out how to make comments in response where I wasn't able at this point in my learning all the better.